ng a noise. And there was far too
much noise as it was--the wind rising and the waves breaking

"All down the thundering shores of Bude and Bos----"

No, though; it was a procession of camels crossing the desert, and in
the distance was an oasis surrounded by palms, and there was white
stonework gleaming between the trees in the wonderful light. And those
great doors that opened from within? They were opening although she
had not knocked. She was expected, then--there, where there was no
more weariness, nor care, nor hunger. But that was not where she
wished to go. No! no! that did not tempt her.

"Take me where I shall not remember," she implored.

Poor Beth! the one boon she had to ask of Heaven at five-and-twenty
was oblivion: "Let me be where I shall forget."

Downstairs on the doorstep, Ethel Maud Mary and Gwendolen lingered a
while before they turned to follow Beth into the house, and, as they
did so, they noticed that a lady had stopped her carriage in the
middle of the road, jumped out impetuously, and was running towards
them, regardless of the traffic.

"That was Mrs. Maclure who was standing with you here just now and
went into the house?" she exclaimed.

"_Miss_ Maclure," Ethel Maud Mary corrected her.

"Oh, Miss or Mrs., what does it matter?" the lady cried. "It was
Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure looking like death--where is she? Take me
to her at once!" She emphasised the request with an imperious stamp of
her foot.

A few minutes later, Angelica, kneeling on the attic floor beside
Beth, cried aloud in horror, "Why, she is dead!"

CHAPTER LI

One warm morning when the apple-trees were out, Arthur Brock was
sitting with Gresham Powell in the garden of the farm-house where they
were lodging in the country, turning over a portfolio full of Powell's
sketches, and Powell was looking at them over his shoulder, and
discussing them with him. Arthur had just come upon a clever study of
the head of a girl in a hat, and was looking hard at it.

"That's a study in starvation," Powell explained. "It's an interesting
face, isn't it? She came into a hairdresser's one day when I was
there, and sat down just in that attitude, and I sketched her on the
spot. She was too far through at the moment to notice me. Look at her
pretty hair particularly. You'll see why in the next sketch, which is
the sequel."

Brock took up the next sketch hurriedly. It was the same girl in the
same hat, but with her hair