Irene, however, all of a sudden remembered it. She remembered the night long ago when she, a wild little untamed creature, had crept into the room where Rosamund slept, had forced her to come out with her, and they had spent the night together in the bower. She would go there now. She did not know what guided her footsteps, but she felt sure some one did.
Now, the shrubbery, a delightful place in warm weather, was damp and cold as ice at this time of the year. The leaves, now falling thickly from the trees, lay sodden on the ground. Sleet continued to fall heavily from the sky. All the seekers were chilled to the very bone, and the bower, so charming in summer, so perfect a resort, so happy a hiding-place, was now the very essence of desolation. But Irene cared nothing for that. She cared nothing for the fact that her thin shoes were soaked through and through, that her dress hung closely round her, that her hat was bent forward over her eyes. She only wanted to find little Agnes, and to have her love again. In the bower Irene did find the child crouched up in one corner, terrified, an almost unseeing expression in her eyes. Irene rushed to her with a glad cry.
"My darling! my darling! Oh, my own sweet little darling, come to your own Irene!"
But Agnes gave a shriek of terror when she saw her.
"No, no! Keep away! It's you who did it! You don't love me! No, no, I won't come to you!"
The piercing shrieks that came from the poor little girl's lips brought the rest of the party to the scene. When they appeared, Professor Merriman holding a lantern, they saw Agnes crouched in the farthest corner of the bower, her eyes semi-conscious, her face deadly white with terror, while Irene stood a little way off.
"Some one has turned her brain. Take her; do what you can with her," said Irene; and she walked away, not caring where she went.
They brought little Agnes back, and of course they sent for the doctor. The doctor stayed all night, for he said the child had received some very severe and terrible shock. Mrs. Merriman nursed her, and the next day, as soon as possible, Miss Frost returned.
But neither Miss Frost, nor the doctor, nor any one else could ease the terrors which had laid hold of the brain of little Agnes. She believed Miss Frost to be a sort of magnified Irene. The very name of Irene was enough to set her screaming again. She called Irene a fairy, a changeling, and nothing could soothe her or comfort her.