The long dark fringes of her eyelashes cast a shade upon the transparent colour of her cheek, and the light breath came softly through her parted lips.

But as Mary Goddard looked she saw that there were still tears upon her lovely face and that the pillow was still wet.

She had cried herself to sleep, for Martha had told her that her mother was very ill and would not see her that night; Nellie was accustomed to say her prayers at her mother's knee every evening before going to bed, she was used to having her mother smooth her pillow and kiss her and put out her light, leaving her with sweet words, to wake her with sweet words on the next morning, and to-night she had missed all this and had been told moreover that her mother was very ill and was acting very strangely.

She had gone to bed and had cried herself to sleep, and the tears were still upon her cheeks.

Shading the light carefully from the child's eyes, Mary Goddard bent down and kissed her forehead once and then feeling that her sorrow was rising again she turned and passed noiselessly from the room.
But Nellie was dreaming peacefully and knew nothing of her mother's visit; she slept on not knowing that scarcely a quarter of a mile away her own father, whom she had been taught to think of as dead, was lying at the Hall, wounded and unconscious while half the detectives in the kingdom were looking for him.