from her mistress till toward the latter part of the afternoon, when
that lady, ringing her bell, gave her first order.

"A substantial dinner," she cried; and when Loretta, greatly relieved,
brought up the required meal she was astonished to find the door open
and herself bidden to enter. The sight which met her eyes staggered
her. From one end of the room to the other were signs of great
nervous unrest and of terrible suffering. The chairs were pushed
into corners as if the wretched bride had tramped the floor in an
agony of excitement. Curtains were torn and the piano-cover was
hanging half on and half off the open upright, as if she had clutched
at it to keep herself from falling. On the floor beneath lay several
pieces of broken china, - vases of whose value Mrs. Jeffrey had often
spoken, but which, jerked off with the cover, had been left where
they fell; while immediately in front of the fireplace lay one of
the rugs tossed into a heap, as if she had rolled in it on the floor
or used it to smother her cries of pain or anger.

So much for the state in which the witness found the boudoir. The
adjoining bed-room was not in much better case, though it was evident
that the bed itself had not been lain in since it was made up the
day before at breakfast time. By this token Mrs. Jeffrey had not
slept the night before, or if she had laid her head anywhere it had
been on the rug already spoken of.

These signs of extreme mental suffering, so much more extreme than
any Loretta had ever before witnessed, frightened her so that the
tray shook in her hand as she set it down on the table among the
countless objects Mrs. Jeffrey always had about her. The noise
seemed to startle her mistress, who had walked to the window after