"How is your patient, Doctor?" asked Kate.
"Much better, Miss Kate. In a day or two we will have her all right, I think. She is a nervous little creature, with an overstrung and highly imaginative temperament. I wonder she has not seen ghosts long ago."
"You are not thinking of leaving us," said Captain Danton. "No, no, I won't hear of it. We can give you a bed and breakfast here equal to anything down at the hotel, and it will save you a journey up to-morrow morning. Is Grace with her yet?"
"Yes, Grace insists on remaining till morning. There is no necessity, though, for she will not awake."
Kate gathered up the folds of her rich ball-dress, and ran up the polished oaken stair, nodding adieu. Not to her own room, however, but to that of the seamstress.
The small chamber was dimly lighted by a lamp turned low. By the bedside sat Grace, wrapped in a shawl; on the pillow lay the white face of Agnes Darling, calm in her slumber, but colourless as the pillow itself.
Kate bent over her, and Grace arose at her entrance. It was such a contrast; the stately, beautiful girl, with jewelled flowers in her hair, her costly robe trailing the carpetless floor, the perfume of her dress and golden hair scenting the room, and the wan little creature, so wasted and pale, lying asleep on the low bed. Her hands grasped the bed-clothes in her slumber, and with every rise and fall of her breast, rose and fell a little locket worn round her neck by a black cord. Kate's fingers touched it lightly.
"Poor soul!" she said; "poor little Agnes! Are you going to stay with her until morning, Grace?"
"Yes, Miss Danton."
"I could not go to my room without seeing her; but now, there is no necessity to linger. Good-morning."