"_Mother_!" rang in horror through the room. And before I could
turn my head, Dwight Pollard leaped by me, and hiding the face of
the dying woman on his breast, turned on me a gaze that was half
wild, half commanding, and said:

"Go for my brother! He is in the northwest room. Tell him our mother
raves." Then, as I took a hurried, though by no means steady, step
towards the door, he added: "I need not ask you to speak to no one
else?"

"No," my cold lips essayed to utter, but an unmeaning murmur was
all that left them. The reaction from hope and trust to a now
really tangible fear had been too sudden and overwhelming.

But by the time I had reached the room to which I had been directed,
I had regained in a measure my self-control. Guy Pollard at least
should not see that I could be affected by any thing which could
happen in this house. Yet when, in answer to my summons, he joined
me in the hall, I found it difficult to preserve the air of
respectful sympathy I had assumed, so searching was his look, and so
direct the question with which he met his brother's message.

"My mother raves, you say; will you be kind enough to tell me what
her words were?"

"Yes," returned I, scorning to prevaricate in a struggle I at least
meant should be an honest one. "She called upon her sons, and said
that she would haunt them if ever they divulged what took place
between them and Mr. Barrows at the mill."