"God bless thee, poor Anne," she said. "I think thou wouldst lie on my threshold and watch the whole night through, if I should need it; but I have given way to womanish vapours too much—I must go and be alone. I was driven by my thoughts to come and sit and look at thy good face—I did not mean to wake thee. Go back to bed."

She would be obeyed, and led Anne to her couch herself, making her lie down, and drawing the coverlet about her; after which she stood upright with a strange smile, laying her hands lightly about her own white throat.

"When I was a new-born thing and had a little throat and a weak breath," she cried, "'twould have been an easy thing to end me. I have been told I lay beneath my mother when they found her dead. If, when she felt her breath leaving her, she had laid her hand upon my mouth and stopped mine, I should not," with the little laugh again—"I should not lie awake to-night."

And then she went away.

Chapter XIV - Containing the History of the Breaking of the Horse Devil, and Relates the Returning of His Grace of Osmonde from France

*

There were in this strange nature, depths so awful and profound that it was not to be sounded or to be judged as others were. But one thing could have melted or caused the unconquerable spirit to bend, and this was the overwhelming passion of love—not a slight, tender feeling, but a great and powerful one, such as could be awakened but by a being of as strong and deep a nature as itself, one who was in all things its peer.

"I have been lonely—lonely all my life," my Lady Dunstanwolde had once said to her sister, and she had indeed spoken a truth.