lmother still insisted on having her way.

"You're contradicting your own orders," she said to her mistress. "You
don't know how soon you may begin wandering in your mind again. Think,
Miss Letitia--think."

This remonstrance was received in silence. Mrs. Ellmother's great gaunt
figure still blocked up the doorway.

"If you force me to it," Emily said, quietly, "I must go to the doctor,
and ask him to interfere."

"Do you mean that?" Mrs. Ellmother said, quietly, on her side.

"I do mean it," was the answer.

The old servant suddenly submitted--with a look which took Emily by
surprise. She had expected to see anger; the face that now confronted
her was a face subdued by sorrow and fear.

"I wash my hands of it," Mrs. Ellmother said. "Go in--and take the
consequences."

CHAPTER XIII. MISS LETITIA.

Emily entered the room. The door was immediately closed on her from the
outer side. Mrs. Ellmother's heavy steps were heard retreating along the
passage. Then the banging of the door that led into the kitchen shook
the flimsily-built cottage. Then, there was silence.

The dim light of a lamp hidden away in a corner and screened by a dingy
green shade, just revealed the closely-curtained bed, and the table
near it bearing medicine-bottles and glasses. The only objects on
the chimney-piece were a clock that had been stopped in mercy to the
sufferer's irritable nerves, and an open case containing a machine for
pouring drops into the eyes. The smell of fumigating pastilles hung
heavily on the air. To Emily's excited imagination, the silence was like
the silence of death. She approached the bed trembling. "Won't you speak
to me, aunt?"

"Is that you, Emily? Who let you come in?"

"You said I might come in, dear. Are you thirsty? I see some lemonade on
the table. Shall I give it to you?"

"No! If you open the bed-curtains, you let in the light. My poor eyes!
Why are you here, my dear? Why are you not at the school?"

"It's holiday-time, aunt. Besides, I have left school for good."

"Left school?" Miss Letitia's memory made an effort, as she repeated
those words. "You were going somewhere when you left school," she said,
"and Cecilia Wyvil had something to do with it. Oh, my love, how cruel
of you to go away to a stranger, when you might live here with me!"
She paused--her sense of what she had herself just said began to grow
confused. "What stranger?" she asked abruptly. "Was it a man? What name?
Oh, my mind!