"Simmons? I don't remember the name; and I rather pride myself on the fact that I do know the names of all the maids. Perhaps she came with one of the other women."
"No, she told me that she had been here only a few days, and that she came with some other new servants last week from town. Margaret, I've a feeling that that woman brought the locket with her; that she'd never found it as she pretended, that she knows more about it than she chose to say--the feeling was strong on me as she stood there with her smiling face. This locket came into her possession in some queer way. I saw it on her face, although she kept on smiling. If I hadn't been going down to the dance, I'd have had it out of her."
"The truth! If you only knew how I feel that everything--everyone--is against us; against me, and against Sydney; if you only knew what I've had to bear at home, from uncle, and other ways--from myself. Sydney is in some desperate plight; I'm as convinced of it as if he himself had told me. If I could only get at him to help him! But I can't! I can't! I don't know where he is! And now that woman brings me his locket, from which I'm perfectly certain he would not allow himself to be parted unless he were at his last gasp--unless something worse than death stared him in the face. I do believe he'd stick to it--yes, Margaret, I mean it. I know Sydney, as no one else does, as no one else can; he has his faults--no one need tell me that, but I know he loves me, and that, having said what he did say about that locket, he'd stand to his word while the breath was in his body, unless--mind!--unless some awful thing has befallen him, and that's what I'm afraid of. You may laugh, but there's something here"--the girl pressed her hands to her side--"which tells me--if you only knew how afraid I am--oh, Margaret, if you only knew!"
The girl sank on to her knees at the countess's side, she hid her face on her ladyship's silken lap--and she cried.
The night had gone, the morning was well advanced, the day would soon break, the countess had long since gone, and still Miss Forster had not gone to bed. There was something which kept her from placing herself between the sheets; and now that at last she was beginning to have thoughts in that direction, something occurred which banished sleep still farther from her eyes.