out," cried her wretched mistress.

"Oh, ma'am, don't be fretted; don't take it to heart, ma'am," said the
maid, clasping her hands together in anguish.

"Anything, anything, Willett; only speak at once," she answered.

"Well, ma'am, it is soon said--it is easy told. The master, ma'am--the
master is gone with the Frenchwoman; they went in the traveling coach
last night, ma'am; he is gone away with her, ma'am; that is all."

Mrs. Marston looked at the girl with a gaze of stupefied, stony terror;
not a muscle of her face moved; not one heaving respiration showed that
she was living. Motionless, with this fearful look fixed upon the girl,
and her thin hands stretched towards her, she remained, second after
second. At last her outstretched hands began to tremble more and more
violently; and as if for the first time the knowledge of this calamity had
reached her, with a cry, as though body and soul were parting, she fell
back motionless in her bed.

Several hours had passed before Mrs. Marston was restored to
consciousness. To this state of utter insensibility, one of silent,
terrified stupor succeeded; and it was not until she saw her daughter
Rhoda standing at her bedside, weeping, that she found voice and
recollection to speak.

"My child; my darling, my poor child," she cried, sobbing piteously, as
she drew her to her heart and looked in her face alternately--"my
darling, my darling child!"