't mean to say you are goin' to let a man put your mother
into--'

I heard no more. The terrible idea which had been growing in my
brain, shaping itself out of a nebulous mass of reminiscences of what
had just occurred at the studio, was now stinging me to madness.
Wilderspin's extreme dejection, the strange way in which he had
seemed inclined to evade answering my question as to the safety of
Winifred, the look of pity on his face as at last he answered 'quite
safe'--what did all these indications portend? At every second the
thought grew and grew, till my brain seemed like a vapour of fire,
and my eyeballs seemed to scorch their sockets as I cried aloud:
'Have I found her at last to lose her?'

On reaching the studio door I rapped: before the servant had time to
answer my summons, I rapped again till the sounds echoed along the
street. When my summons was answered, I rushed upstairs. Wilderspin
stood at the studio door, listening, apparently, to the sound of the
blacksmith's anvil coming in from the back of Maud Street through the
open window. Though his sorrowful face told all, I cried out,
'Wilderspin, she's safe? You said she was safe?'

'My friend,' said Wilderspin solemnly, 'the news I have to give you
is news that I knew you would rather receive when you could hear it
alone.'

'You said she was safe!'

'Yes, safe indeed! She whom you, under some strange but no doubt
beneficent hallucination, believe to be the lady you lost in Wales,
is safe indeed, for she is in the spirit-land with her whose blessing
lent her to me--she has returned to her who was once a female
blacksmith at Oldhill, and is now the brightest, sweetest, purest
saint in Paradise.'

Dead! My soul had been waiting for the word--expecting it ever since
I left the studio with my mother--but now it sounded more dreadful
than if it had come as a surprise.

'Tell me all,' I cried, 'at once--at once. She did not return, you
say, on the day following the catastrophe--when did she return?--when
did you next see her?'

'I never saw her again alive,' answered Wilderspin mournfully; 'but
you are so pale, Mr. Aylwin, and your eyes are so wild, I had better
defer telling you what little more there is to tell until you have
quite recovered from the shock.'

'No; now, now.'

Wilderspin looked with a deep sigh at the picture of 'Faith and
Love,' fired by the lights of sunset, where Winnie's face seemed
alive.

'Well,' said he, 'as she did not come