What's the matter ?" Again Martha did not answer.
"Tell me what it is." "Upstairs! Upstairs!" Martha gasped in reply.

"Quick!" "What has happened ?" "Not here; upstairs." They climbed the staircase together, Jane half carrying the fainting woman, her mind in a whirl.
"Where were you taken ill?
Why did you try to come home?
Why didn't Lucy come with you ?" They had reached the door of Jane's bedroom now, Martha clinging to her arm.
Once inside, the nurse leaned panting against the door, put her bands to her face as if she would shut out some dreadful spectre, and sank slowly to the floor.
"It is not me," she moaned, wringing her hands, "not me--not--" "Who ?" "Oh, I can't say it!" "Lucy ?" "Yes" "Not ill ?" "No; worse!" "Oh, Martha! Not dead ?" "O God, I wish she were!" An hour passed--an hour of agony, of humiliation and despair.
Again the door opened and Jane stepped out--slowly, as if in pain, her lips tight drawn, her face ghastly white, the thin cheeks sunken into deeper hollows, the eyes burning.

Only the mouth preserved its lines, but firmer, more rigid, more severe, as if tightened by the strength of some great resolve.

In her hand she held a letter.
Martha lay on the bed, her face to the wall, her head still in her palms.

She had ceased sobbing and was quite still, as if exhausted.
Jane leaned over the banisters, called to one of the servants, and dropping the letter to the floor below, said: "Take that to Captain Holt's.