ner-time."

Beth shut her eyes. "If he is sent for and goes," she reflected, "I
shall know it is a ruse to deceive me; and I shall get up and follow
him."

He left her to sleep and went downstairs. But Beth could not sleep.
The draught quieted her mind for a little; then the worry began again
as bad as ever, and she found herself straining her attention to
discover to whom he was talking, for she fancied she heard him
whispering with some one out in the passage. She bore the suspicion
awhile, then jumped out of bed impetuously and opened the door. The
gas was burning low in the passage, but she could see that there was
no one about. Surely, though, there were voices downstairs?
Barefooted, and only in her night-dress, she went to see. Yes, there
were voices in the dining-room--now! She flung the door wide open. Dan
and another man, a crony of his, who had dropped in casually, were
sitting smoking and chatting over their whiskeys-and-sodas.

Beth, becoming conscious of her night-dress the moment she saw them,
turned and fled back to her bed; greatly relieved in her mind by the
shock of her own indiscretion.

"What a mad thing to do!" she thought. "I hope to goodness they didn't
see me."

_A mad thing to do!_

The words, when they recurred to her, were a revelation. What had she
been doing all day? Mad things! What was this sudden haunting horror
that had seized upon her? Why, madness! Dan was just as he had always
been. The change was in herself, and only madness could account for
such a change. There was madness in the family. She remembered her
father and the "moon-faced Bessie"--the familiarities with servants,
too; surely her mother had suffered, and doubtless this misery which
had come upon her had been communicated to her before her birth.
Jealous-mad she was; that was what it meant, the one idea goading her
on to do what would otherwise have been impossible, possessing her in
spite of herself, and not to be banished by any effort of will.

"Heaven help me!" she groaned. "What will become of me?"

Then, as if in reply, there rose to her lips involuntarily the
assurance which recurred to her now for her help and comfort in every
hard moment of her life like a refrain: "I shall succeed."

And she set herself bravely to conceal her trouble, whatever it cost
her, and to conquer it.

But it was a hard battle. For months the awful worry in her head
continued, the same thoughts haunted her, the same jealous r