"You think it might have been Mr. Edwin Barley. I wish I had not heard that."
I said, or implied, it was as likely to have been he as the other. "Anne," she suddenly added, "you possess thought and sense beyond your years: what do you think?"
"I think it was Mr. Heneage. I think so because he has run away, and because he looked so strangely when he was hiding. And I do not think it was Mr. Edwin Barley. When he told you how it occurred just now, and that it was not he, his voice sounded as though he were speaking truth."
"Oh, dear!" she moaned, "I hope it was so! What a mercy if that Philip King had never come near the house!"
"But, Selina, you are sorry that he is dead?"
"Sorry that he is dead? Of course I am sorry. What a curious child you are! He was no favourite of mine; but," she cried, passionately clasping her hands, "I would give all I am worth to call him back to life."
But I could not be reconciled to what I had done, and sobbed on heavily, until lights and Mr. Lowe came in together.
CHAPTER V.
ANOTHER DREAM.
"If ever I heard the like of that! one won't be able to open one's lips next before you, Miss Hereford. Did I say anything about her dying, pray? Or about your dying? Or my dying? Time enough to snap me up when I do."
Thus spoke Jemima, with a volubility that nearly took her breath away. She had come to my room in the morning with the news that Mrs. Edwin Barley was worse. I burst into tears, and asked if she were going to die: which brought forth the above rebuke.