Aunt Susan is out, and Aunt Phoebe is very bad this
afternoon, and cannot see any one. She is lying in the dark, and I was
to let none of the neighbours in while Aunt Susan was away.'

'All right, Kitty; but Aunt Phoebe will see me.' And he walked into the
passage, and told the child to close the door gently. The room we passed
was strewn with work-material, and looked cold and comfortless, but a
small kitchen opposite had a warm cosy aspect. Mr. Hamilton passed both
rooms and tapped at a door lower down the passage, and then without
waiting for an answer entered, and beckoned me to follow him.

A dark curtain had been drawn across the window, and the dim glow of a
cindery fire scarcely gave sufficient light to discern the different
pieces of furniture. Mr. Hamilton gave vent to a suppressed exclamation
of impatience as he seized the poker, but I could not but notice the
skilful and almost noiseless manner in which he manipulated the coals.
Then he looked round for a match, and lighted a candle on the
mantelpiece, in spite of a peevish remonstrance from the patient.

'You will make my head worse, doctor: nothing but the dark eases it.'

'Nonsense, Phoebe! I know better than that,' he returned cheerfully,
and then he stepped up to the bed, and I followed him. The woman who
lay there was still young in years, she could not have been more than
three- or four-and-thirty, but every semblance of youth was crushed out
of her by some subtile and mysterious suffering; it might have been the
face of a dead woman, only for the living eyes that looked at us.

The hopeless wistful look in those eyes gave me a singular shock. I had
never seen human eyes with the same expression; they seemed as though
they were appealing against some awful destiny. Once when Charlie and
I were staying at Rutherford a beautiful spaniel belonging to Lesbia had
been accidentally shot while straying in some wood. The poor animal had
dragged himself with pain and difficulty to the garden-gate, and there we
found him. I shall never forget the wistfulness of the poor creature's
eyes when his mistress knelt down and caressed him. He died a few minutes
afterwards, licking her hand. I could not help thinking of Tito when I
first saw Phoebe Locke; for the same unreasoning anguish seemed in the
sick woman's eyes. A tormented soul looked out of them.

There was something rigid and uncompromising in the whole aspect of the
sick-room; there was nothing to tone d