ively ugly, but, after all, there was something
noble in his expression, a power that made itself felt.

Just then the lines of his face relaxed and softened; he half smiled,
looked up, and our eyes met. I was terribly abashed at the thought that
he should find me watching him; but, to my surprise, his face brightened,
and he roused himself and crossed the room.

'I was dreaming, I think, but you woke me. Are you very tired? Shall I
take your place?' But before I could reply his manner changed, and he
stooped over the bed, and then looked at me with a smile.

'I thought so. The breathing is certainly less difficult: the
inflammation is diminishing. I see signs of improvement.'

'Thank God!' was my answer to this, and before long this hope was
verified: the pain and difficulty of breathing were certainly less
intense, the danger was subsiding.

Mr. Hamilton went downstairs soon after this, and I settled to my
solitary night-watch, but it was no longer dreary: every hour I felt more
assured that Susan Locke would be restored to her sister.

Once or twice during the night I crept into Phoebe's room to gladden her
heart with the glad news, but she was sleeping heavily and I would not
disturb her. 'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning,' I said to myself, as I sat down by Susan's bedside. I was very
weary, but a strange tumult of thoughts seemed surging through my brain,
and I was unable to control them. Gladys's pale face and tear-filled eyes
rose perpetually before me: her low, passionate tones vibrated in my ear.
'They have accused him falsely,' I seemed to hear her say: 'Eric never
took that cheque.'

What a mystery in that quiet household! No wonder there was something
unrestful in the atmosphere of Gladwyn,--that one felt oppressed and ill
at ease in that house.

Fragments of my conversation with Mr. Hamilton came unbidden to my
memory. How strange that that proud, reserved man should have spoken so
to me, that he had suffered his heart's bitterness to overflow in words
to me, who was almost a stranger: 'They lay the blame of that poor boy's
death at my door, as though I would not give my right hand to have him
back again.' Oh, if Gladys had only heard the tone in which he said this,
she must have believed and have been sorry for him.

'They are too hard upon him,' I said to myself. 'If he has been stern
and injudicious with his poor young brother, he has long ago repented
of his hardn