Come, don't stare at me any longer; put away your
diamonds and come below with me, my ponies must be dying with
impatience, and I am anxious to avoid our mutual foe, for I make common
cause with you, dear, and I have told you my secret, that we may be in
very truth, fellow conspirators. Make my adieus to the family, and be
sure and come to me just as you used; if your ogre insists upon coming,
trust me to freeze him into an earnest desire to be in a warmer and more
congenial place. Courage, _mon ami_, somehow we must win the battle."

Sybil took the diamonds from her hands and put them away, with far more
care than she had displayed in bringing them forth; then she followed
her friend from the room, closing and carefully locking the door behind
her.

Constance observed the unusual caution, but made no comment. Only when
many days after she remembered that day she wondered how she could have
been so stupidly blind.

She effected her departure without being seen by Frank or Burrill, and
drove homeward, revolving in her mind various plots for the confusion of
the latter, and plans for awakening Sybil from the dangerous melancholy
that would surely unseat her reason.

"If I could only move her to tears," she murmured, "only break that
frozen calm once. How can I touch, move, melt her? It must be done." And
pondering this difficult task, she drove slowly on.

"I wonder if I blundered in telling her my secret," she mused. "I know
she will keep it; and yet, somehow, I fear I was too hasty. One would
think it had grown too big for me to keep. But, pshaw! it's not a life
and death matter, and I wanted to give a new impulse to that poor
child's thoughts. But I must try and cure myself of this impulsiveness,
just as if it were not 'bred in the bone,' for it was an impulse that
made me whisper my secret to Sybil; and once, it has got me into serious
trouble." And her brow darkened, as she thought of the feud thus raised
between herself and Doctor Heath.

While she was thus pondering, Sybil Burrill had hurried back to her own
room, locked herself in, and with hands clasped and working nervously,
was pacing restlessly up and down, as Constance had done a little
earlier.

"It's the only way," she muttered between shut teeth, "the only possible
way." And then she unlocked the dressing case, took out her jewels once
more, handling them with greatest care. She spread them out before her,
and resting her elbows on the dressing tab