been so with me, and it is less so than ever
now. I can hardly bear to think of my son at sea in such a tempest as
this. While I can still get no news of his ship, morbid fancies beset
me which I vainly try to shake off. I see the trees through my window
bending before the wind. Are the masts of the good ship bending like
them at this moment? I hear the wash of the driving rain. Is _he_
hearing the thunder of the raging waves? If he had only come back last
night!--it is vain to dwell on it, but the thought will haunt me--if he
had only come back last night!

I tried to speak cautiously about him again to Jessie, as Owen had
advised me; but I am so old and feeble now that this ill-omened storm
has upset me, and I could not feel sure enough of my own self-control to
venture on matching myself to-day against a light-hearted, lively girl,
with all her wits about her. It is so important that I should not betray
George--it would be so inexcusable on my part if his interests suffered,
even accidentally, in my hands.

This was a trying day for our guest. Her few trifling indoor resources
had, as I could see, begun to lose their attractions for her at last.
If we were not now getting to the end of the stories, and to the end,
therefore, of the Ten Days also, our chance of keeping her much longer
at the Glen Tower would be a very poor one.

It was, I think, a great relief for us all to be summoned together this
evening for a definite purpose. The wind had fallen a little as it got
on toward dusk. To hear it growing gradually fainter and fainter in
the valley below added immeasurably to the comforting influence of the
blazing fire and the cheerful lights when the shutters were closed for
the night.

The number drawn happened to be the last of the series--Ten--and the
last also of the stories which I had written. There were now but two
numbers left in the bowl. Owen and Morgan had each one reading more to
accomplish before our guest's stay came to an end, and the manuscripts
in the Purple Volume were all exhausted.

"This new story of mine," I said, "is not, like the story I last read,
a narrative of adventure happening to myself, but of adventures that
happened to a lady of my acquaintance. I was brought into contact, in
the first instance, with one of her male relatives, and, in the second
instance, with the lady herself, by certain professional circumstances
which I need not particularly describe. They involved a dry quest