‘Oh, I should see him once more before all is over! Heaven might favour me thus far!’ she cried. ‘God grant me a little comfort before I die!’ was her humble petition.

‘But he will not know I am ill till I am gone; and he will come when they have laid me out, and I am senseless, cold, and stiff.

‘What can my departed soul feel then? Can it see or know what happens to the clay? Can spirits, through any medium, communicate with living flesh? Can the dead at all revisit those they leave? Can they come in the elements? Will wind, water, fire, lend me a path to Moore?

‘Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulately sometimes—sings as I have lately heard it sing at night—or passes the casement sobbing, as if for sorrow to come? Does nothing, then, haunt it—nothing inspire it?

‘Why, it suggested to me words one night: it poured a strain which I could have written down, only I was appalled, and dared not rise to seek pencil and paper by the dim watch-light.

‘What is that electricity they speak of, whose changes make us well or ill; whose lack or excess blasts; whose even balance revives? What are all those influences that are about us in the atmosphere, that keep playing over our nerves like fingers on stringed instruments, and call forth now a sweet note, and now a wail—now an exultant swell, and anon the saddest cadence?

‘Where is the other world? In what will another life consist? Why do I ask? Have I not cause to think that the hour is hasting but too fast when the veil must be rent for me? Do I not know the Grand Mystery is likely to burst prematurely on me? Great Spirit, in whose goodness I confide, whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and morning from early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy hands! Sustain me through the ordeal I dread, and must undergo! Give me strength, give me patience, give me—oh, give me FAITH!’

She fell back on her pillow. Mrs. Pryor found means to steal quietly from the room; she re-entered it soon after, apparently as composed as if she had really not overheard this strange soliloquy.

The next day several callers came. It had become known that Miss Helstone was worse. Mr. Hall and his sister Margaret arrived; both, after they had been in the sick-room, quitted it in tears. They had found the patient more altered than they expected. Hortense Moore came. Caroline seemed stimulated by her presence. She assured her, smiling, she was not dangerously ill; she talked to her in a low voice, but cheerfully. During her stay, excitement kept up the flush of her complexion; she looked better.

‘How is Mr. Robert?’ asked Mrs. Pryor, as Hortense was preparing to take leave.

‘He was very well when he left.’

‘Left! Is he gone from home?’

It was then explained that some police intelligence about the rioters of whom he was in pursuit had that morning called him away to Birmingham, and probably a fortnight might elapse ere he returned.

‘He is not aware that Miss Helstone is very ill?’

‘Oh no! He thought, like me, that she had only a bad cold.’

After this visit, Mrs. Pryor took care not to approach Caroline’s couch for above an hour. She heard her weep, and dared not look on her tears.

As evening closed in, she brought her some tea. Caroline, opening her eyes from a moment’s slumber, viewed her nurse with an unrecognising glance.