ast, I don't know what time it was."

"It was between nine and ten o'clock when I went to bed. Did you see
anybody--any one all in white--come into my room after I was in bed? If
your door was open, you might have seen any one pass."

"Good gracious, miss, one would think that you was speaking of a ghost!
No, I didn't see anybody pass."

"I thought, perhaps," said Enid rather faintly, "that it might be Mrs.
Vane coming to see how I was, you know. She has a loose white wrapper,
and she often throws a white lace shawl over her head when she goes down
the passages."

"You must have been dreaming, miss," said Parker. She found it easier to
withdraw her hand now that the conversation had taken this turn.

"I suppose I must," said Enid, in a scarcely audible tone. Then she
turned away her face and said, "You can go now, Parker; I feel better. I
think that I shall go to sleep."

But she did not sleep even when Parker had departed. She lay thinking,
with the tears gathering and falling one by one, until they made a great
wet spot on the pillow beneath her head. The shadow that hung over her
young life was growing very dark.

Parker had hurried into her own room, where she first shut and locked
the door, as if afraid to think even while it was open, and then wrung
her hands in a sort of agony.

"To think of it--to think of it!" she said, bursting into sudden sobs.
"And Miss Enid so sweet and innocent and gentle! What has she done? What
has she got to be put out of the way for? Just for the sake of the
money, I suppose, that it may all go to that wretched little Master
Dick! Oh, she's a wicked woman--a wicked woman; and I'd give my life
never to have set eyes upon her, for she'll be the ruin of me body and
soul!"

But "she" in this case did not mean Enid Vane.

Parker was aroused from her meditations by the sharp tinkle of a bell,
which she knew that Mrs. Vane must have rung. She started when she heard
it, and a look of disgust crossed her face; but, as she hesitated, the
bell rang again, more imperiously than ever. Parker dashed the tears
from her eyes, and sped down the long corridor to Mrs. Vane's
dressing-room. Her hands were trembling still.

"Why do you keep me in this way when I ring for you, Parker?" said Mrs.
Vane, in her coldest tone. "I rang twice."

"Miss Vane wanted me, ma'am. I have been with her."

There was an odd tremor in the woman's voice. Mrs. Vane surveyed her
critically.

"You look very str