er will into something like cunning. For the rest Elizabeth
had a very fair figure, but lacked her sister's rounded loveliness,
though the two were so curiously alike that at a distance you might well
mistake the one for the other. One might almost fancy that nature had
experimented upon Elizabeth before she made up her mind to produce
Beatrice, just to get the lines and distances. The elder sister was
to the other what the pale unfinished model of clay is to the polished
statue in ivory and gold.

"Oh, my God! my God!" groaned the old man; "look, they have got them
on the stretchers. They are both dead. Oh, Beatrice! Beatrice! and only
this morning I spoke harshly to her."

"Don't be so foolish, father," said Elizabeth sharply. "They may only be
insensible."

"Ah, ah," he answered; "it does not matter to you, _you_ don't care
about your sister. You are jealous of her. But I love her, though we do
not understand each other. Here they come. Don't stand staring there. Go
and see that the blankets and things are hot. Stop, doctor, tell me, is
she dead?"

"How can I tell till I have seen her?" the doctor answered, roughly
shaking him off, and passing through the door.

Bryngelly Vicarage was a very simply constructed house. On entering the
visitor found himself in a passage with doors to the right and left.
That to the right led to the sitting-room, that to the left to the
dining-room, both of them long, low and narrow chambers. Following the
passage down for some seven paces, it terminated in another which ran
at right angles to it for the entire length of the house. On the further
side of this passage were several bedroom doors and a room at each end.
That at the end to the right was occupied by Beatrice and her sister,
the next was empty, the third was Mr. Granger's, and the fourth the
spare room. This, with the exception of the kitchens and servants'
sleeping place, which were beyond the dining-room, made up the house.

Fires had been lit in both of the principal rooms. Geoffrey was taken
into the dining-room and attended by the doctor's assistant, and
Beatrice into the sitting-room, and attended by the doctor himself. In
a few seconds the place had been cleared of all except the helpers, and
the work began. The doctor looked at Beatrice's cold shrunken form, and
at the foam upon her lips. He lifted the eyelid, and held a light before
the contracted pupil. Then he shook his head and set to work with a
will. We ne