Morrell and the officers, and will not return until past midnight, very
likely. He is always late at those military dinners."

"That will do; you may go."

"Shall I not light the lamp, my lady?"

"No; be good enough to leave me."

Sybilla quitted the room, her white teeth, set together in a viperish
clinch.

"How she hates me, and how resolved she is to show it! Very well, my
lady. You don't hate me one thousandth part as much as I hate you; and
yet my hatred of you is but a drop in the ocean compared to my deadly
vengeance against your husband. Go, my haughty Lady Kingsland--go to
your tryst--go to your death!"

Left alone, Harriet sat in the deepening darkness for over three hours,
never moving--still and motionless as if turned to stone.

The pretty Swiss clock played a waltz preparatory to striking eleven.
She sat and listened until the last musical chime died away; then she
rose, groped her way to the low, marble chimney-piece, struck a
lucifer, and lighted a large lamp.

The brilliant light flooded the room. Sybilla's rap came that same
instant softly upon the door.

"My lady."

"I hear," my lady said, not opening it. "What is it?"

"All have retired; the house is as still as the grave. The south door
is unfastened; the coast is clear."

"It is well. Good-night."

"Good-night."

She stood a moment listening to the soft rustle of Miss Silver's skirts
in the passage, then, slowly and mechanically, she began to prepare for
her night's work.

She took a long, shrouding mantle, wrapped it around her, drew the hood
over her head, and exchanged her slippers for stout walking shoes.
Then she unlocked her writing-case and drew forth a roll of bank-notes,
thrust them into her bosom, and stood ready.

But she paused an instant yet. She stood before one of the full-length
mirrors, looking at her spectral face, so hollow, so haggard, out of
which all the youth and beauty seemed gone.

"And this is what one short month ago he called bright and
beautiful--this wasted, sunken-eyed vision. Youth and beauty, love and
trust and happiness, home and husband, all lost. Oh, my father, what
have you done?"

She gave one dry, tearless sob. The clock struck the quarter past.
The sound aroused her.

"My mother," she said--"let me think I go to meet my mother. Sinful,
degraded, an outcast, but still my mother. Let me think of that, and
be brave."

She opened her door; the stillness of death reigned