r pain--nobody would ever know it. Perhaps everything
would end, and pass, and die away forever, and it would be her own pain
to the end of her life. Even Denis himself would not know it. He had
never asked her to tell him that she loved him, and if he died, he would
die without having heard a word of love from her lips. What would they
do with her now--Priscilla and Pamela? Make her go back to Paris, and
leave him to them; and if he got well they might never meet again, and,
perhaps, he would never learn who had watched by his bedside, when no
one else on earth was near to try to save him.

She dropped her face upon her folded arms, sobbing in a great,
uncontrollable burst of rebellion against her fate.

"No one cares for us, my darling, my angel, my love!" she cried. "They
would take me from you, if they could; but they shall not, my own. If it
was wrong, how can I help it? And, oh! what does it matter, if all the
world should be lost to me, if only you could be left? If I could only
see your dear face once every day, and hear your voice, even if it was
ever so far away, and you were not speaking to me at all."

She was so wearied with her watching and excitement, that her grief wore
itself away into silence and exhausted quiet. She did not raise her
head, but let it rest upon her arms as she knelt, and before many
minutes had passed, her eyes closed with utter weariness.

She awoke with a start, half an hour later. Some one was standing near
her. It had been twilight when she fell asleep, and now the room was so
gray, that she could barely distinguish who it was. A soft, thick shawl
had been dropped over her, evidently by the person in question. When
Theo's eyes became accustomed to the shadows, she recognized the erect,
slender figure and handsome head. It was Priscilla Gower, and Priscilla
Gower was leaning against the window, and looking down at her fixedly.

"You were cold when I found you," were her first words, "and so I threw
my shawl around you. You ought not to have gone to sleep there."

"I fell asleep before I knew that I was tired," said Theo. "Thank you,
Miss Gower."

There was a pause of a moment, before she summoned courage to speak
again.

"I have not had time yet," she hesitated, at last, "to ask you how Miss
Elizabeth is. I hope she is well?"

"I am sorry to say she is not," Priscilla replied. "If she had been
well, she would have accompanied me here. She has been very weak of
late. It was