CHAPTER XXIV.
AN AWFUL APPARITION.
When Faynie awoke to consciousness she found the housekeeper bending over her.

Hours had passed and Claire had long since retired to her room.
Faynie opened her eyes slowly, in a half-dazed manner, but as she did so memory returned to her with startling force; but she bravely restrained the cry that rose to her lips.
Claire had called her lover "Lester!" She wondered that the sound of that name had: not stricken her head.
Could Claire's lover be--Ah! she dared not even imagine such a horrible possibility.

Then she laughed aloud, thinking how foolish she had been to be so needlessly alarmed.
The false lover who had wooed and won her so cruelly was not the only man in the world who bore the fateful name of Lester.
"Ah, you are better, my dear," exclaimed the old housekeeper in great relief.

"Your swoon lasted so long that I was greatly alarmed; What caused you to faint, my dear child ?" Faynie murmured some reply which she could not quite catch, for the housekeeper was old and very deaf.
"Take this and go to sleep," she said, holding a soothing, quieting draught to the girl's white, hot, parched lips.

"You will awaken as well as ever to-morrow." Faynie did as she was requested, closing her eyes.