I see signs of improvement.' 'Thank God!' was my answer to this, and before long this hope was verified: the pain and difficulty of breathing were certainly less intense, the danger was subsiding.
Mr.Hamilton went downstairs soon after this, and I settled to my solitary night-watch, but it was no longer dreary: every hour I felt more assured that Susan Locke would be restored to her sister.
Once or twice during the night I crept into Phoebe's room to gladden her heart with the glad news, but she was sleeping heavily and I would not disturb her.

'Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning,' I said to myself, as I sat down by Susan's bedside.

I was very weary, but a strange tumult of thoughts seemed surging through my brain, and I was unable to control them.

Gladys's pale face and tear-filled eyes rose perpetually before me: her low, passionate tones vibrated in my ear.
'They have accused him falsely,' I seemed to hear her say: 'Eric never took that cheque.' What a mystery in that quiet household! No wonder there was something unrestful in the atmosphere of Gladwyn,--that one felt oppressed and ill at ease in that house.
Fragments of my conversation with Mr.Hamilton came unbidden to my memory.

How strange that that proud, reserved man should have spoken so to me, that he had suffered his heart's bitterness to overflow in words to me, who was almost a stranger: 'They lay the blame of that poor boy's death at my door, as though I would not give my right hand to have him back again.' Oh, if Gladys had only heard the tone in which he said this, she must have believed and have been sorry for him.
'They are too hard upon him,' I said to myself.