you and I, mamma Rachael; nothing on
this earth can change that!"

Rachael allowed herself to be taken to the bed; but she trembled
violently.

"You are troubled about Hepworth; but I have promised--I do promise.
Papa, nor all the world to help him, could change me. Besides, there is
another thing; we both love him; that would make us cling together, if
nothing else," said Clara.

"Ah, there it is--there it is! Hepworth is gone, and neither you nor I
must ever see him again!" answered Rachael.

"But we will! He loves us. I will marry him some day, if I live."

"Oh, no, no! That can never be! Never! never!"

Rachael was fearfully agitated. Clara tore her form from those clinging
arms.

"What! you?--you turned against us--you!" she exclaimed, pushing Rachael
back from her pillow, and sitting up in the moonlight. "Has my father
driven us all crazy?"

"Hush, child, hush! I have been thinking of that. It seems to me that I
am mad already. Be kind; oh, be kind! Do not urge me on. To-night I have
had such thoughts!"

The girl was frightened; for Rachael was bending over, and the fire of
her great black eyes seemed hot as it was terrible.

"Great Heavens!" she cried, "what has my father done to you?"

Rachael had exhausted herself. She lay down, panting for breath; her
lips were apart; the edges of her teeth were visible; she did not
answer.

Clara forgot her own cause of offence, and laid her hand over those
wide-open, burning eyes.

"Poor mamma Rachael! now try and sleep. I never saw you so nervous
before. Did you know it? you were walking in your sleep."

The cool touch of that hand soothed the woman. Clara felt the eyelids
close under her palm; but a heavy pulse was beating in the temples,
which resisted all her gentle mesmerism for a long time; but, after a
while, the worn frame seemed to rest, and Clara sank down in weary
sleepiness by her side.

When she awoke again Lady Hope was gone. It was the dark hour of the
morning; the moon had disappeared from the heavens; the shadows, in
diffusing themselves, spread out into general darkness.

"Ah, I have had a weary dream," she murmured; "I have heard of such
things, but never had anything dark upon my sleep before. How real it
was! My father home, Hepworth gone, my mother in this bed, trembling,
moaning, and, worst of all, against me and him. Ah, it was a terrible
dream!"

She turned upon her pillow, full of sleepy thankfulness, and the next
instant ha