“What ails you, Miss Miriam?  I thought Mabel was always your first thought; the little angel!  She has been hanging over you tearfully all day; never going near Miss Evelyn at all.  It is so strange she shows such partiality!”

Strange that one being on earth, and that one my sister, should love me better than Evelyn, in the eyes of her partial affection; and yet Evelyn treated her with positive disrespect every day of her life, as I never did; and often with severity as well.  It was incomprehensible!

“Give me the panada,” I said, grimly; “I am half starved, and must grow strong again to do my work.  I am not nearly so weak as I usually am, though, after one of my seizures.”

“You see you are outgrowing them, as Dr. Pemberton predicted you would.  I declare, you are hungry, poor child; you have not left a drop—­pint-bowl too—­with a gill of wine in it.  Not going to get up, Miss Miriam?  Oh, no; you must not venture to do that yet.”

And she tried gently to restrain me.

“Yes, I must get about again; I have much to do, and Evelyn must aid me, if able.  Is she ill or only nervous?”

“Very ill, I think; she wrote a note to Dr. Craig and sent it last night, after you went to sleep; but he did not come.”

“Quite naturally, since he had been absent some weeks.  I could have told her,” I said, sententiously; “indeed, I thought she knew it.  Who carried her note?”

“Morton.”

“Poor old man!  The idea of sending him on such a wild-goose chase, after night.  Papa would turn in his grave could he know he had been forced out in the rain at such an hour, for a woman’s whim.  I would have suffered tortures till morning first.  Where was Franklin?”

“Franklin had gone home earlier than usual, and did not return to-day.  He is sick with a chill, we hear, and his wife is again ill.”

“Who did the marketing?”

“Morton.”

“Morton again!  Why, the old man seems to be becoming a factotum in his declining years—­he whose duties have always been so few, so simple!  I am provoked, for some reasons, that he should have been sent away to-day.  Fortunately, I bolted the pantry-door myself, before I came to bed last night,” I murmured, “and the front door is self-fastening.  The house was well secured, at least, by night.”

“How long did Morton remain absent?” I asked, recommencing my system of cross-questions, very abruptly.

“About an hour, I believe; but what makes you so particular, all at once, Miss Miriam?”

“Some day you shall know, perhaps.  In the mean while tell me, has Mr. Bainrothe been here to-day?”

“He called about one o’clock, but, as all were poorly, went away again without entering the house at all.  I saw him go down-street, after dinner, in his phaeton, with another gentleman, and have not heard wheels since.”

“You are sure he was not here, this morning—­while—­while Morton was absent?”