you see, however little I may think of Evans's
notions on the subject, I am bound to
communicate with the Home Office. If Mrs.
Carruthers's illness did not render my absence
improper and impossible, I should go to London
myself, and lay the matter before Lord
Wolstenholme; but, as I cannot do that, I must
write at once." Mr. Carruthers, in his secret
soul, regarded the obligation with no little dread,
and would have been grateful for a suggestion
which he would not have condescended to ask
for.

"Then I will leave you, uncle," said Clare,
making a strong effort to speak as cheerfully as
possible, "to your task of telling the big wigs
that there's nothing more to be done or known
down here. You might make them laugh, if
such solemn, grand people ever laugh, by telling
them how the rural mind believes two
vaguenesses to make a certainty, and make them
grateful that Evans came to you, and not to them,
with his mare's nest of corroborative
evidence."

Clare's fair face was sharpened with anxiety
as she spoke, despite the brightness of her tone,
and she had narrowly watched the effect of her
words. Her uncle felt that they conveyed
precisely the hint he required, and was
proportionally relieved.

"Of course, of course," he answered, in his
grandest manner; and Clare moved towards the
door, when, remembering the letters, she said:

"There are some letters for Mrs. Carruthers,
uncle. I fancy she is too ill to see them. Two
are from America; will you take them?"

"I take them, Clare, why?" asked her uncle,
in a tone of dignified surprise.

"Only because, being foreign letters, I
thought they might require attention—that's
all," said Clare, feeling herself rebuked for a
vulgarity. "They come from New York."

"Probably from Mr. Felton," said Mr.
Carruthers, pointing the gold eye-glasses at the
letters in Clare's hand with dignified coldness,
but making no attempt to look at them nearer.
"You had better lay them aside, or give them
to Brookes or Dixon. I never meddle with
Mrs. Carruthers's family correspondence."

Clare made her escape with the letters, feeling
as if her ears had, morally speaking, been
boxed; and diverted, for a little, by the sensation
from the devouring anxiety she had felt
that Mr. Carruthers should communicate in the
tone which she had tried to insinuate with the
dignitaries of the Home Office.

The door of Mrs. Carruthers's room was
open, and the curtain partly withdrawn, when
Clare reached it. She called softly to Dixon,
but received no reply. Then she went in, and
found the housekeeper again in attendance
upon the patient. To her inquiries she
received from Mrs. Brookes very discouraging
replies, and the old woman stated her conviction
strongly that it was going to be a very bad
business, and that Clare had much better go to
the Sycamores.

"You can't do any good here, Miss Carruthers,"
said the old woman; and Clare thought
she had never heard her speak so sternly and
harshly. "I don't know that any one can do any
good; but you can't, anyhow, and the fever
be catching."

Clare's eyes filled with tears, not only
because she loved Mrs. Carruthers, not only
because another trouble was added to the
crushing misery that had fallen upon her, but
also because it hurt her gentle nature keenly to
feel herself of no account.

"No," she said, in a low voice, "I know I
am of no use, Mrs. Brookes. I am not her
child. If I were, I should not be expected to
leave her. And," she added, bitterly, for the
first time treading, on the forbidden ground,
"more than that, if it were not for me her son
might be with her now, perhaps."

"Hush, hush, pray," whispered Mrs. Brookes,
with a frightened glance at the bed; "don't
say that word! She may hear and understand
more than we think."

Clare looked at her in bewilderment, but
obeyed her, and asked no questions.

"These came just now," she said; "my
uncle desired me to give them to you."

She put the letters into the old woman's
hand, and crossed the room, leaving it by the
opposite door, which communicated with Mrs.
Carruthers's dressing-room. As she passed
through the inner apartment, which opened on
the corridor, she observed that the portrait of
George Dallas, which had hung upon the wall
as long as she remembered the room, was no
longer there.

The hidden anguish in her own heart, the
secret which was crushing her own young spirit,
made the girl quick to see and interpret any
sign of similar sorrow and mystery.

"Mrs. Brookes has taken away her son's
picture," Clare thought, as she slowly descended
the stairs, "and she dreads his name being
mentioned in her presence. Dr. Munns asked if she
had had a shock, and seemed to impute her
illness to something of the kind. There is
something wrong with George Dallas, and the two
know it."

When Miss Carruthers left her, Mrs. Brookes
broke the seal of one of the letters without a
moment's hesitation, and read its contents, standing
shielded from any possible observation by
the invalid by the curtains of the bed. The
letter contained only a few lines:

"I am going away, out of England, for a  little
while, my dearest mother," George Dallas wrote.
"It is necessary for the transaction of my business;
but I did not know it would be so when I
last communicated with you. Write to me at the
subjoined address: your letter will be forwarded."
The address given was Routh's, at South
Molton-street.

The old woman sighed heavily as she read
the letter, and then resumed her attendance on
her patient.

The day waned, the London physician came
and went. The household at Poynings learned
little of their mistress's state. There was little