putting out a finger, incapable of any exertion, yet with an awful curiosity. Then all at once out of the darkness, swift as an angel on noiseless pinions, a white figure rose and rushed at him, carrying him away from the bed out to the door, unwitting, aghast, by the mere impetus of its own wild sudden motion. When they had got outside it was Sara's face that was turned upon him, pale as the face of the dead, with her hair hanging about it wildly, and the moisture standing in big beads on her forehead. "What were you going to do?" she seemed to shriek in his ear, though the shriek was only a whisper. He had left his candle outside, and it was by that faint light he could see the whiteness of her face. "Do?" said Mr Brownlow, with a strange sense of wonder. "Do?-nothing. What could I do?" Then Sara threw herself upon him and wept aloud-wept so that the sound ran through the house, sobbing along the long listening passages. "Oh, papa, papa!" she cried, clinging to him. A look as of idiocy had come into his face. He had become totally confused-he did not know what she meant. What could he do? Why was she crying? And it was wrong to make a noise like this, when all the house was hushed and asleep. "You must be quiet," he said. "There is no need CHAPTER XXXVII. THE MORNING LIGHT. OF all painful things in this world there are few more painful than the feeling of rising up in the morning to a difficulty unsolved, a mystery unexplained. So long as the darkness is over with the night something can always be done. Calamity can be faced, misfortune met; but to get up in the morning light, and encounter afresh the darkness, and find no clue any more than you had at night, is hard work. This was what Jack felt when he had to face the sunshine, and remembered all that had happened, and the merry party that awaited him down-stairs, and that he must amuse his visitors as if this day had been like any other. If he but knew what had really happened! But the utmost he could do was to guess at it, and that in the vaguest way. The young man went downstairs with a load on his mind, not so much of was there he had stooped to kiss her, dismissing her, as it seemed. But after she had turned to go back, he came out again and called her. He looked almost as old and as shaken as Mrs Preston as he called her back: "Don't forsake me-don't you forsake me," he said, hurriedly; "that was all-that was all: good night." And then he went in and shut his door. Sara, left to herself, went back along the corridor, not knowing what to think. Were they all mad, or going mad? What could the shock be which had made Pamela's humble mother frantic, and confused Mr Brownlow's clear intellect? She lay down on her sofa to watch her patient, feeling as if she too was becoming idiotic. She could not sleep, young as she was the awful shadow that had come across her mind had murdered sleep. She lay and listened to Mrs Preston's irregular, interrupted breathing, far into the night. But sleep was not for Sara's eyes. CHAPTER XXXVII. THE MORNING LIGHT. OF all painful things in this world there are few more painful than the feeling of rising up in the morning to a difficulty unsolved, a mystery unexplained. So long as the darkness is over with the night something can always be done. Calamity can be faced, misfortune met; but to get up in the morning light, and encounter afresh the darkness, and find no clue any more than you had at night, is hard work. This was what Jack felt when he had to face the sunshine, and remembered all that had happened, and the merry party that awaited him down-stairs, and that he must amuse his visitors as if this day had been like any other. If he but knew what had really happened! But the utmost he could do was to guess at it, and that in the vaguest way. The young man went downstairs with a load on his mind, not so much of care as of uncertainty. Loss of fortune was a thing that could be met; but if there was loss of honour involved-if his father's brain was giving way with the pressure-if- Jack would not allow his thoughts to go any further. He drew himself up with a sudden pull, and stopped short, and went down-stairs. At the breakfast-table everything looked horribly unchanged. The guests, the servants, the routine of the cheerful meal, were just as usual. Mr Brownlow, too, was at the table, holding his usual place. There was an ashy look about his face, which produced inquiries concerning his health from every new arrival; but his answers were so brief and unencouraging that these questions soon died off into silence. And he ate nothing, and his hand shook as he put his cup of coffee to his pallid lips. All these were symptoms that might be accounted for in the simplest way by a little bodily derangement. But Jack, for his part, was afraid to meet his father's eye. "Where is Sara?" he asked, as he took his seat. And then he was met for he was late, and most of the party were down before him-by a flutter of regrets and wonder. Poor Sara had a headache-so bad a headache that she would not even have any one go into her room. "Angelique was keeping the door like a little tiger," one of the young ladies said, |