The night was quiet and clear.  She leaned her head out of the window, and heard the mellow Sunday evening roar of the city as of a sea at ebb.  And Dahlia was out on the sea.  Rhoda thought of it as she looked at the row of lamps, and listened to the noise remote, until the sight of stars was pleasant as the faces of friends.  “People are kind here,” she reflected, for her short experience of the landlady was good, and a young gentleman who had hailed a cab for her at the station, had a nice voice.  He was fair.  “I am dark,” came a spontaneous reflection.  She undressed, and half dozing over her beating heart in bed, heard the street door open, and leaped to think that her sister approached, jumping up in her bed to give ear to the door and the stairs, that were conducting her joy to her:  but she quickly recomposed herself, and feigned sleep, for the delight of revelling in her sister’s first wonderment.  The door was flung wide, and Rhoda heard her name called by Dahlia’s voice, and then there was a delicious silence, and she felt that Dahlia was coming up to her on tiptoe, and waited for her head to be stooped near, that she might fling out her arms, and draw the dear head to her bosom.  But Dahlia came only to the bedside, without leaning over, and spoke of her looks, which held the girl quiet.

“How she sleeps!  It’s a country sleep!” Dahlia murmured.  “She’s changed, but it’s all for the better.  She’s quite a woman; she’s a perfect brunette; and the nose I used to laugh at suits her face and those black, thick eyebrows of hers; my pet!  Oh, why is she here?  What’s meant by it?  I knew nothing of her coming.  Is she sent on purpose?”

Rhoda did not stir.  The tone of Dahlia’s speaking, low and almost awful to her, laid a flat hand on her, and kept her still.

“I came for my Bible,” she heard Dahlia say.  “I promised mother—­oh, my poor darling mother!  And Dody lying in my bed!  Who would have thought of such things?  Perhaps heaven does look after us and interfere.  What will become of me?  Oh, you pretty innocent in your sleep!  I lie for hours, and can’t sleep.  She binds her hair in a knot on the pillow, just as she used to in the old farm days!”

Rhoda knew that her sister was bending over her now, but she was almost frigid, and could not move.

Dahlia went to the looking-glass.  “How flushed I am!” she murmured.  “No; I’m pale, quite white.  I’ve lost my strength.  What can I do?  How could I take mother’s Bible, and run from my pretty one, who expects me, and dreams she’ll wake with me beside her in the morning!  I can’t—­I can’t If you love me, Edward, you won’t wish it.”

She fell into a chair, crying wildly, and muffling her sobs.  Rhoda’s eyelids grew moist, but wonder and the cold anguish of senseless sympathy held her still frost-bound.  All at once she heard the window open.  Some one spoke in the street below; some one uttered Dahlia’s name.  A deep bell swung a note of midnight.