“Oh, Fanny!” he said then, seeing they were only two in the room. “Where is Miss—”

But Fanny took his copy of the play out of his hands and put it on the desk. And then, with a deep breath, she told him all about Miss Crawford.

“No! It cannot be!” exclaimed Edmund, with desperate eyes, when Fanny was done. “I refuse to believe it! There are enough Curses upon our heads as it is! Not she! She is pure and delightful and kind and oh—”

“She is a vampire, cousin. She has charmed you. And I am sorry to say this, but she intends to do you, and all of us, a great evil.”

Edmund suddenly got up from his seat and pushed back the chair with a terrible scrape against the floor. Never had Fanny seen him so distraught and furious—her kindest gentlest Edmund!—as he was in that moment.

And then, in absolute silence, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

The first regular rehearsal of the three first acts was certainly to take place in the evening: Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords were engaged to return for that purpose after dinner; and every one concerned was looking forward with cheerful eagerness. Tom was enjoying such progress towards the end; Edmund was in renewed spirits from the morning’s rehearsal (inexplicably so, thought Fanny in dread; he had to have flatly disbelieved all the things told him about Miss Crawford!), and little vexations seemed everywhere smoothed away. All were alert and impatient, and with the exception of Lady Bertram and her ever-attendant Lord Eastwind, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, everybody was in the theatre at an early hour. Having illuminated it as well as its unfinished state admitted, they were waiting only for the arrival of Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords to begin.

They did not wait long for the Crawfords, but there was no Mrs. Grant. She could not come. Dr. Grant, professing an indisposition, could not spare his wife. Fanny had a momentary dark thought that mayhap Miss Crawford had turned on her own sister and fed on her. . . .

“Dr. Grant is ill,” said Miss Crawford, with mock solemnity. “He has been ill ever since he did not eat any of the pheasant today. He fancied it tough, sent away his plate, and has been suffering ever since.”