“I must, I will go to her!” she said, at last, firmly.  “A daughter’s footsteps must be moving along dangerous ways, if she fears to let her mother know the paths she is treading.  Oh, mother!” and she clasped her hands almost wildly against her bosom.  “My good, wise, loving mother!—­how could I let a stranger come in between us, and tempt my heart from its truth to you for a moment!  Yes, yes, you must know all, and this very hour.”

Acting from this better state of mind, Fanny unlocked her door, and was passing along one of the passages in the direction of her mother’s room, when she met Aunt Grace.

“Oh! child! child! what is the matter with you?” exclaimed the aunt, catching hold of her, and looking intently into her pale face.  “Come, now, tell me all about it—­that’s a dear, good girl.”

“Tell you about what, Aunt Grace?” said Fanny, with as much firmness as she could assume, trying, as she spoke, to disengage herself from the firm grasp with which she was held.

“About all this matter that troubles you.  Why, dear me! you look just as if you’d come out of a spell of sickness.  What is it, dear?  Now do tell your aunty, who loves you just as well as if you were her own child.  Do, love.”

And Aunt Grace tried to draw the head of Fanny close to her bosom.  But her niece struggled to be free, answering, as she did so—­

“Don’t question me now, Aunt Grace, please.  Only let me go to mother.  I want to see her.”

“She is not in her room,” said Miss Markland.

“Are you certain?”

“Oh, yes.  I have just come from there.”

“Where is she, then?”

“In the library, with your father.”

Without a word more, Fanny turned from her aunt, and, gliding back to her own chamber, entered, and closed the door.

“Oh, dear, dear, dear!  What does ail the child?” almost sobbed Aunt Grace, wringing her hands together, as she stood, with a bewildered air, gazing upon the door through which the form of her niece had just passed.  “Something is the matter—­something dreadful.  And it all comes of Edward’s foolish confidence in a stranger, that I could see, with half an eye, was not a man to be trusted.”

For some minutes, Miss Markland remained standing as her niece had left her, trying to make up her mind to act in some decided way for the remedy of existing troubles.

“I’ll just speak to Edward plainly about this business,” she at length said, with considerable warmth of manner.  “Shall I stand, with sealed lips, and witness such a sacrifice?  No—­no—­no!”

And with nothing clearly settled or arranged in her thoughts, Aunt Grace started for the library, with the intention of speaking out plainly to her brother.  The opportunity for doing so, however, did not occur; for, on entering the library, she found it empty.

CHAPTER XV.