pale face, and my
first action after kissing her was to lower the blind. I was glad of the
excuse for turning away a moment, for her appearance gave me quite a
shock.

She looked as though she had been ill for weeks. Her face looked dark and
sunken, and the blue lines were painfully visible round her temples. Her
forehead was contracted, as though with severe pain, and her eyes were
heavy and feverish. When she raised her languid eyelids and looked at me,
a sudden fear contracted my heart.

'Ursula, thank God you have come!'

'We must always thank Him, dearest, whatever happens,' I returned, as
I knelt down by her and took her burning hand in mine. 'And now you must
tell me what is wrong with you, and why I find you like this.'

'I do not know,' she whispered, almost clinging to me. And it struck me
then that she was frightened about herself. 'As I told Giles, I feel very
ill. The heat tries me, and my head always aches,--such a dull, miserable
pain; and, most of all, I cannot sleep, and all sorts of horrid thoughts
come to me. Sometimes in the night, when I am quite alone, I feel as
though I were light-headed and should lose my senses. Oh, Ursula, if
this goes on, what will become of me?'

'We will talk about that presently. Tell me, have you ever been ill in
this way before?'

'Yes, last summer, only not so bad. But I had the pain and the
sleeplessness then. Giles was so good to me. He said I wanted change, and
he took a little cottage at Westgate-on-Sea and sent me down with Lady
Betty and Chatty, and I soon got all right.'

'So I thought. And now--'

'Oh, it is different this time,' she replied nervously. 'I did not have
dreadful thoughts then, or feel frightened, as I do now. Ursula, I know
I am very ill. If you leave me to Etta and Leah, I shall get worse. I
have sent for you to-night to remind you of your promise.'

'What promise?' I faltered. But of course I knew what she meant. A sense
of wretchedness had been slowly growing on me as she talked. If it should
come to that,--that I must remain under his roof! I felt a tingling sense
of shame and humiliation at the bare idea.

'Of your solemn promise, most solemnly uttered,' she repeated, 'that if I
were ill you would come and nurse me. I claim that promise, Ursula.'

'Is it absolutely necessary that I should come?' I asked, in a distressed
voice, for all at once life seemed too difficult to me. How had I
deserved this fresh pain!

In a moment her m