For a moment Fay yielded to the comfort of the close encircling arms, and leaned her head against Magdalen's breast.
Then she wrenched herself free, and pushed her sister violently from her.
"Why do you come creeping in like that ?" she said fiercely.

"You only come to spy upon me." Magdalen did not speak.

She had withdrawn a pace, and stood looking at her sister, her face as white as her night-gown.
Fay turned her tear-drenched face to the window and looked fixedly out.
There was a faint movement in the room.

When she looked round Magdalen was gone.
Fay, worn with two years of partially eluded suffering, restless with pain, often sick at heart, was at last nearing the last ditch:--but she had not reached it yet.
Many more useless tears, many more nights of anguish, many more days of sullen despair still lay between her and that last refuge..