She solemnly repeated the words, "I am afraid for my child."

"Why?"

"My Anne is my second self--isn't she?"

"Yes."

"She is as fond of your child as I was of you?"

"Yes."

"She is not called by her father's name--she is called by mine. She is
Anne Silvester as I was. Blanche! _Will she end like Me?_"

The question was put with the laboring breath, with the heavy accents
which tell that death is near. It chilled the living woman who heard it
to the marrow of her bones.

"Don't think that!" she cried, horror-struck. "For God's sake, don't
think that!"

The wildness began to appear again in Anne Silvester's eyes. She made
feebly impatient signs with her hands. Lady Lundie bent over her, and
heard her whisper, "Lift me up."

She lay in her friend's arms; she looked up in her friend's face; she
went back wildly to her fear for her child.