BLACK SHEEP!

BY THE AUTHOR OF "LAND AT LAST," "KISSING THE ROD," &c. &c.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER IV. THE SHADOW LIGHTENED.

LONG before Mr. Carruthers, impelled by the
irresistible force of routine, which not all the
concern, and even alarm, occasioned him by
Mrs. Carruthers's condition could subdue, had
issued forth upon his daily tour of inspection,
Clare's letters had been safely posted, by her
own hand, at the village. She had slept but
little on the night which had fallen on her first
experience of fear and grief; and waking, at
dawn, oppressed by a heavy sense of some
dimly understood calamity, she had recalled it
all in a moment, and, having hurriedly dressed
herself, she went down to the breakfast-room
and let herself out through the window,
accompanied by her dog, whose joyous gambols in
the bright morning air she did not notice.
That morning air struck chill to the weary
limbs and aching head of the sad, bewildered
girl as she pursued her rapid way through the
shrubbery, brushing the dew from the branches
of the trees as she passed hurriedly along, heartsick
and yet wandering and confused in her
thoughts.

Her walk was quite solitary and uninterrupted.
She slid the letters into a convenient
slit of a window-shutter of the general shop,
to which the dignity and emoluments of a post-
office were attached, glanced up and down the
little street, listened to certain desultory sounds
which spoke of the commencement of activity
in adjacent stable-yards, and to the barking
with which some vagabond dogs of her
acquaintance greeted her and Cæsar, satisfied
herself that she was unobserved, and then retraced
her steps as rapidly as possible. The large
white-faced clock over the stables at Poynings
—an unimpeachable instrument, never known
to gain or lose within the memory of man—was
striking six as Clare Carruthers carefully
replaced the bolt of the breakfast-room window
and crept up-stairs again with a faint flutter of
satisfaction that her errand had been safely
accomplished, contending with the dreariness and
dread which filled her heart. She put away
her hat and cloak, changed her dress, which
was wet with the dew, and sat down by the
door of the room to listen for the first stir of
life in the house.

Soon she heard her uncle's step, lighter, less
creaky, than usual, and went out to meet him.
He did not show any surprise on seeing her
so early, and the expression of his face told her
in a moment that he had no good news of the
invalid to communicate.

"Brookes says she has had a very bad
night," he said, gravely. "I am going to send
for Munns at once, and to telegraph to London
for more advice." Then he went on in a
state of subdued creak, and Clare, in increased
bewilderment and misery, went to Mrs.
Carruthers's room, where she found the reign of
dangerous illness seriously inaugurated.

Doctor Munns came, and early in the afternoon
a grave and polite gentleman arrived from
London, who was very affable, but rather
reserved, and who was also guilty of the
unaccountable bad taste of suggesting a shock in
connexion with Mrs. Carruthers's illness. He
also was emphatically corrected by Mr.
Carruthers, but not with the same harshness which
had marked that gentleman's reception of Dr.
Munns's suggestion. The grave gentleman
from London made but little addition to Dr.
Munns's treatment, declined to commit
himself to any decided opinion on the case, and
went away, leaving Mr. Carruthers with a
sensation of helplessness and vague injury, to say
nothing of downright misery and alarm, to
which the Grand Lama was entirely unaccustomed.

Before the London physician made his
appearance, Clare and her uncle had met at
breakfast, and she had learned all there was to
be known on the subject which had taken
entire and terrible possession of her mind. It
seemed to Clare now that she had no power of
thinking of anything else, that it was quite
impossible that only yesterday morning she was a
careless, unconscious girl musing over a romantic
incident in her life, speculating vaguely upon
the possibility of any result accruing from it in
the future, and feeling as far removed from the
crimes and dangers of life as if they had no
existence. Now she took her place opposite her
uncle with a face whose pallor and expression
of deep-seated trouble even that unobservant
and self-engrossed potentate could not fail to
notice. He did observe the alteration in Clare's