confidence.

What did it mean? Oh, the useless, hopeless question! And yet,
again and again she asked herself: what did it mean?

In bewildered wretchedness she lingered on the way to her room,
and stopped at the end of a corridor.

On her right hand, a broad flight of old oak stairs led to the
bed-chambers on the second floor of the house. On her left hand,
an open door showed the stone steps which descended to the
terrace and the garden. The moonlight lay in all its loveliness
on the flower-beds and the grass, and tempted her to pause and
admire it. A prospect of sleepless misery was the one prospect
before her that Sydney could see, if she retired to rest. The
cool night air came freshly up the vaulted tunnel in which the
steps were set; the moonlit garden offered its solace to the
girl's sore heart. No curious women-servants appeared on the
stairs that led to the bed-chambers. No inquisitive eyes could
look at her from the windows of the ground floor--a solitude
abandoned to the curiosity of tourists. Sydney took her hat and
cloak from the stand in a recess at the side of the door, and
went into the garden.


Chapter VIII.

Mrs. Presty Makes a Discovery.