Mr. Dunkirk said, “According to the surgeon, your sister’s efforts may well have saved Mr. Vincent’s life. He is less sure if his senses will survive intact.”

Melody swayed at these words, and would have fallen if Mr. Ellsworth had not leaped forward to catch her. Mr. Dunkirk helped him bring Melody up to her room.

What right did Melody have to faint, when Jane had tended the man? If anyone deserved to be overwrought with emotion, it was Jane, but now she had the task of tending to her sister as well. When Mr. Dunkirk had taken his leave, Jane’s father asked her to rouse Melody sufficiently to undress her for bed, though Jane was sorely tempted to let her sleep in her gown. Melody had no right to use Mr. Vincent’s fate to seek further attentions from Mr. Dunkirk.

With effort, Jane stifled these feelings until she was alone in her room.

There, in the darkness of her bed, Jane surrendered to tears. That such talent, such art, might be unraveled like a skein of glamour tore at her soul. Jane sobbed, muffling her cries in her pillow, until she fell asleep.

In the morning, Captain Livingston brought news that Mr. Vincent had a steadier pulse, but that he had not regained his senses. Jane left him to console Melody while she took the news to her mother, who pressed her hand to her heart and said, “To think that I almost lost you! My darling girl. I always knew you should not practice glamour. Have I not said that you should take care? And to think that you could be lying senseless even now!”

“Mama, I was never in any danger.”

“I remember how you fainted when the Dunkirks were here. If I had known then how close to death you were, I would have been in hysterics. It is not to be borne. You must give up glamour at once. Promise me you will.”

“I have never been close to death.” Unwilling to continue the subject, Jane picked up the book she had been reading and said, “Shall I resume the story? Sidonia is facing a Laplander with an enchanted drum in the next chapter.”

Mrs. Ellsworth cried, “What do I care of Sidonia and drums!” and then lost herself in her ravings.

In some measure, Jane welcomed her mother’s overexcited mind, for soothing it kept her own mind off the events of the previous evening. She went down for dinner and learned from her father that Captain Livingston had called again and that Mr. Vincent’s condition continued unchanged.

When they went to bed that evening, Mr. Vincent was still unconscious. On the second day, Captain Livingston brought them word that he had opened his eyes once, but had not seemed to see anything, and then closed them again.

That evening, as Jane, Melody, and their father sat in the drawing room, they heard a horse arrive and then a sharp rap at the front door.