backgammon with her; or even to sit quietly with her without speaking,
for the mere sake of companionship. One fact you will soon discover for
yourself--that her ladyship does not like to be long alone. And now,
dearest, I think I have told you enough for the present. We will talk
further of these things to-morrow. Give me just one kiss and see what
you can find to play among that heap of old music on the piano. Madame
Delclos used to write in raptures of your style and touch. We will now
prove whether her eulogy was well founded."

Janet found that she was not to occupy the same bed-room as on her first
visit to Deepley Walls, but one nearer that of Sister Agnes. She was not
sorry for this, for there had been a secret dread upon her of having to
sleep in a room so near that occupied by the body of Sir John
Chillington. She had never forgotten her terrible experience in
connection with the Black Room, and she wished to keep herself entirely
free from any such influences in time to come. The first question she
asked Dance when they reached her bed-room was--

"Does Sister Agnes still visit the Black Room every midnight?"

"Yes, for sure," answered Dance. "There is no one but her to do it. Her
ladyship would not allow any of the servants to enter the room. Rather
than that, I believe she would herself do what has to be done there.
Sister Agnes would not neglect that duty if she was dying."

Janet said no more, but then and there she made up her mind to a certain
course of action of which nothing would have made her believe herself
capable only an hour before.

Early next forenoon she was summoned to an interview with Lady
Chillington. Her heart beat more quickly than common as she was ushered
by Dance into the old woman's dressing-room.

Her ladyship was in demi-toilette--made up in part for the day, but not
yet finished. Her black wig, with its long corkscrew curls, was
carefully adjusted; her rouge and powder were artistically laid on, her
eyebrows elaborately pointed, and in so far she looked as she always
looked when visible to anyone but her maid. But her figure wanted
bracing up, so to speak, and looked shrunken and shrivelled in the old
cashmere dressing-robe, from which at that early hour she had not
emerged. Her fingers--long, lean and yellow--were decorated with some
half-dozen valuable rings. Increasing years had not tended to make her
hands steadier than Janet remembered them as being when she last saw he