o the window. She had not looked
for this complication.

"I'd have done better to have gone with Mrs. Brett after all," was her
first thought. Then she turned to Lady Jane and said in a determined
voice, "I don't think you ought to fear me, for I'm quite sure there is
no danger. Even if there were, Irene would not have contracted the
disease through me, for she lay for some time last night in Jane's bed."

"Heaven help me!" said Lady Jane.

She wrung her hands, and then got up and also stood by the window.

"It strikes me," she said after a pause, "that God is punishing me more
cruelly than He punishes most people, and I cannot understand it. In any
case, whether this means life or death, that child's present behavior
and present prospects are intolerable. You shall come, Rosamund. I will
take the risk. Come to me, and welcome, only let me have the
satisfaction of knowing that your mother approves."

"Then will you wire to her?" said Rosamund.

"That would be an excellent plan," replied Lady Jane. "I will take your
telegram to the village, for you don't want the servants to see what
you are saying. Write it out at once, and I will take it."

"I have not brought any of my things with me, except just what I am
wearing, so you will have to provide me until mother sends me a boxful
from London. I am sure I am safe, and if--if Irene were to get ill, I
think I should be able to nurse her better than any one else."

Lady Jane suddenly went up to the girl and kissed her.

"You are extraordinary!" she said. "You are brave above the common. I
believe God has sent you. Does Irene know you are here?"

"No; I have not told her."

"Then she needn't know for the present. But where is she?"

"I wish you would write that telegram, Lady Jane. You ought to have
mother's consent. I shall not be happy until it has come."

"At present Irene is supposed to be in the schoolroom. Where she really
is I do not know, poor Miss Frost being absent. Anyhow, I will take this
telegram myself, and ask you to remain quietly in a bedroom in this
house until the reply comes from your mother. Just give me this
promise--that you will not see Irene until I have heard from your
mother."

To this proposition Rosamund was forced to submit. Indeed, she was not
sorry at the prospect of a little rest, for she was beginning to feel
very acutely her adventures of the previous night. Lady Jane wrote the
telegram, ordered a carriage to be sent round, an