As she spoke to herself she rose, glided noiselessly through the hall,
entered a small closet built in the thickness of the wall, and, bending
to the keyhole of a narrow door, listened with a half-smile on her lips
at the trespass she was committing. A murmur of voices met her ear. Her
husband spoke oftenest, and suddenly some word of his dashed the smile
from her face as if with a blow. She started, shrank, and shivered,
bending lower with set teeth, white cheeks, and panic-stricken heart.
Paler and paler grew her lips, wilder and wilder her eyes, fainter and
fainter her breath, till, with a long sigh, a vain effort to save
herself, she sank prone upon the threshold of the door, as if struck
down by death.

"Mercy on us, my lady, are you ill?" cried Hester, the maid, as her
mistress glided into the room looking like a ghost, half an hour later.

"I am faint and cold. Help me to my bed, but do not disturb Sir
Richard."

A shiver crept over her as she spoke, and, casting a wild, woeful look
about her, she laid her head upon the pillow like one who never cared to
lift it up again. Hester, a sharp-eyed, middle-aged woman, watched the
pale creature for a moment, then left the room muttering, "Something is
wrong, and Sir Richard must know it. That black-bearded man came for no
good, I'll warrant."

At the door of the library she paused. No sound of voices came from
within; a stifled groan was all she heard; and without waiting to knock
she went in, fearing she knew not what. Sir Richard sat at his writing
table pen in hand, but his face was hidden on his arm, and his whole