he old letters that seemed to be shouted at her.

Miss Carew, coming in at dinner-time, was horror-struck by what she saw.
Molly was sitting on the floor surrounded by letters and papers, moaning
and biting her hand. The gong sounded, the parlourmaid announced dinner,
and Molly gathered up her papers, locked them in the box, fastened the
key on to her chain--all in complete silence--and got up from the floor.
She then walked straight into the dining-room in her large hat and
outdoor clothes without speaking.

And without a word the terrified Miss Carew went with her, and tried to
eat her dinner.

Molly ate a very little of each thing that was offered to her, taking a
few mouthfuls voraciously, and then quite suddenly, as she was offered a
dish of forced asparagus, she went into peal after peal of ringing,
resounding laughter. "I should like you to have asparagus at every
meal," she said, and then again came peal after peal--each a quite
distinct sound. It was dreadful to hear, and Miss Carew and the servant
were terrified. It was the laughter, not of a maniac, not of pure
unreasoning hysteria, not quite of a lost soul. It suggested these
elements, perhaps, but it was chiefly a nervous convulsion at an
overpowering perception of the irony in the heart of things.

The hysterical fit lasted long enough for Miss Carew to insist on a
doctor, and Molly did not resist. When he came she implored him to give
her a strong sleeping-draught. She kept Miss Carew and the maid fussing
about her, in a terror of being alone, until the draught was at last
sent in by a dilatory chemist. She then hurried them away, drank the
medicine, and set herself to go to sleep. The draught acted soon, as
Miss Carew learnt by listening at the door and hearing the deep, regular
breathing. But the effects passed off, and Molly sat up absolutely
awake at one o'clock in the morning. She lay down again and tried to
force herself to sleep by sheer will power, but she soon realised the
awful impotence of desire in forcing sleep.

At last, horror of her own intensely alert faculties, blinded by
darkness, made her turn up the light. Instantly the sight of the
familiar room seemed unbearable, and she turned it down again. But again
the darkness was quite intolerable, and seemed to have a hideous life of
its own which held in it presences of evil. At one moment she breathed
in the air of the winter's night, shivering with cold; at the next she
was stifled fo