ce, she crouched on the rug, and looked into the fire with a
horrible vacant stare. Then she clasped her hands over her forehead, and
rocked slowly to and fro, still staring into the fire. "There's how he
sits!" she said, with a sudden burst of speech. "Hours on hours, there's
how he sits! Notices nobody. Cries about _you._"

The picture she presented recalled to my memory the Report of Dexter's
health, and the doctor's plain warning of peril waiting for him in the
future.

Even if I could have resisted Ariel, I must have yielded to the vague
dread of consequences which now shook me in secret.

"Don't do that!" I cried. She was still rocking herself in imitation
of the "Master," and still staring into the fire with her hands to her
head. "Get up, pray! I am not angry with him now. I forgive him."

She rose on her hands and knees, and waited, looking up intently into my
face. In that attitude--more like a dog than a human being--she repeated
her customary petition when she wanted to fix words that interested her
in her mind.

"Say it again!"

I did as she bade me. She was not satisfied.

"Say it as it is in the letter," she went on. "Say it as the Master said
it to Me."

I looked back at the letter, and repeated the form of message contained
in the latter part of it, word for word:

"I forgive him; and one day I will let him see me again."

She sprang to her feet at a bound. For the first time since she had
entered the room her dull face began to break slowly into light and
life.

"That's it!" she cried. "Hear if I can say it, too; hear if I've got it
by heart."

Teaching her exactly as I should have taught a child, I slowly fastened
the message, word by word, on her mind.

"Now rest yourself," I said; "and let me give you something to eat and
drink after your long walk."

I might as well have spoken to one of the chairs. She snatched up her
stick from the floor, and burst out with a hoarse shout of joy. "I've
got it by heart!" she cried. "This will cool the Master's head! Hooray!"
She dashed out into the passage like a wild animal escaping from its
cage. I was just in time to see her tear open the garden gate, and set
forth on her walk back at a pace which made it hopeless to attempt to
follow and stop her.

I returned to the sitting-room, pondering on a question which has
perplexed wiser heads than mine. Could a man who was hopelessly and
entirely wicked have inspired such devoted attachment to him