The Dead Secret

1. A plot against the secret-3

"Why not?"

"Because you will be ill again with talking about it. You will be looking into that corner, and dreaming with your eyes open. You are too ill—yes, yes, Sarah; you are too ill."

"I'm not ill! Oh, why does everybody keep telling me that I am ill? Let me talk about it, uncle. I have come to talk about it; I can't rest till I have told you."

She spoke with a changing color and an embarrassed manner, now apparently conscious for the first time that she had allowed words and actions to escape her which it would have been more prudent to have restrained.

"Don't notice me again," she said, with her soft voice, and her gentle, pleading manner. "Don't notice me if I talk or look as I ought not. I lose myself sometimes, without knowing it; and I suppose I lost myself just now. It means