"Don't worry about me, dear. Think of poor Jane."

"We've been thinking of Jane all night, and you need it now more than
she does. I can tell by your eyes how you are suffering."

In the first streak of dawn, which was beginning to glimmer faintly on
the window-panes, Mrs. Carr looked as if she had withered overnight.

"It's only my left temple," she said dully, "otherwise I am quite well.
No, dear, I must rub Jane's forehead until she falls asleep. The doctor
said it was important that we should keep her soothed."

But it was a law of Gabriella's nature that she never knew when she was
beaten. Failure aroused the sleeping forces within her, and when these
forces were once liberated, the spasmodic efforts of Mrs. Carr and the
indirect methods of Jane were alike powerless to oppose them. At such
times a faint flush rose to her pale cheeks, her eyes shone with a
burning darkness, while her mouth lost its fresh young red and grew hard
in outline.

"You must go to bed, mother," she repeated in a voice which Mrs. Carr
would have obeyed had it issued from the wall or a piece of furniture.

Fifteen minutes later Gabriella stood authoritatively beside the bed,
while her mother, with a mustard plaster at the back of her neck,
obediently sipped hot milk from a teacup. Mrs. Carr had surrendered to
the conquering spirit of her daughter, but her surrender, which was
unwilling and weakly defiant, gave out presently a last feeble flicker
of resistance.