send for him, wherever he may be, if there is
no chance of her recovery. I don't say he
would send for him sooner."

"Of course Mr. Carruthers has no idea of
the cause of Mrs. Carruthers's illness?"

"No, no; it was her fear of his finding out,
that George had been here, and what for, that
brought it on; but, of course, he did not
suspect anything."

"It is very strange," said Harriet, musingly;
"she seems to have borne all this business
perfectly well at the time, and given way
completely afterwards. It must have surprised you
very much, Mrs. Brookes, though, no doubt,
you understand your mistress's constitution."

"Yes," replied the old woman, dryly, and
ignoring the beginning of the sentence, "I
understand my mistress's constitution."

"I will give your message to Mr. Dallas,"
said Harriet, rising, "and I had better leave
you our temporary address, unless, indeed, you
would prefer writing to Mr. Dallas direct."

"No," said Mrs. Brookes, "I have nothing
to say. When news of his mother comes from
abroad, I will send it to you."

The old woman was constrained and miserable
in her visitor's presence, but the hospitality
of Poynings must be vindicated; and she
felt, besides, that Mrs. Carruthers would, in other
days, have been glad of an opportunity of being
kind to any one who had been kind to George.
So she pressed Harriet to take some
refreshment and to prolong her visit. But Harriet
would not touch bread or wine in the house,
and told Mrs. Brookes she must return to
Amherst immediately, to catch the train for
Dover. "I dined at the inn in the town," she
said, in explanation of her refusal, "as I had to
wait awhile before I could get a fly."

"I hope they made you comfortable, ma'am,"
said Mrs. Brookes, who had resumed, when
their interview assumed a common-place
complexion, her head-servant-like manner.
"Page's people are obliging, and it is a respectable
house."

"Very much so indeed," returned Harriet,
carelessly. "The town seems a clean dull sort
of place. I had a funeral to look at while I
waited for my dinner, and the waiter
entertained me with the biography of the deceased."

"I had not heard of a death at Amherst,"
said Mrs. Brookes, primly. She did not like
the flippant tone in which her visitor spoke.
"The servants have not been in the town this
week."

"An estimable person—one Evans, a tailor,
I believe; so the waiter said," Harriet
returned, still more carelessly, as she took up
her parasol and railway-guide, glanced covertly
at the old woman's face, and moved to the
door.

Mrs. Brookes stood quite still for several
seconds; then she followed Harriet, joined her
at the red-baize door which opened into the
hall, accompanied her to the great door, where
a footman waited, took a respectful leave of
her, and then shut herself up in her room, and
remained invisible to the household for the
remainder of the day.

As Harriet Routh drove back to Amherst,
she leaned her head wearily against the
uncongenial woodwork of the fly, and summed up
the results of her journey.

"Whatever the mother knows, the old
woman knows. The old woman is as staunch
as steel, and she will conceal her suspicions all
the more tenaciously, the stronger they are;
and I have strengthened them. What a clever
old woman she is, and how brave! If my
purpose had been what she suspected, I should
have had some real difficulty in getting the
information I required. It is clear that
nothing is to be feared now, in this direction.
Mrs. Brookes will never speak. Mrs.
Carruthers is in the best possible condition for
our purposes, and her son has no pretext for
returning to Poynings, even if the death of
the tailor had not made it quite safe for him to
do so."

She did not look out upon the fair scene
through which she was passing. To her, all
beauty of nature was a dead thing; she had
no heart-throbs of exultation in "the pomp that
fills the summer circuit of the hills;" no sense
of its serene loveliness reached her busy brain,
or tempted her troubled brooding eyes. When
she occasionally lifted them, in shifting her
position, they might have been blind for any
knowledge of the sunshine or the greenery that
was in them. "I will write to him," she went
on in her thoughts, "just what she told me to
say. Poor George! It is hard to have to
make him believe that he has broken his
mother's heart, and turned his mother's brain.
He does not deserve it, fool as he is. He is
easily persuaded, fortunately. I don't feel fit
for much that is not easy now. The letter
must be sent on at once, and, if I do my part
well, and this woman dies, or remains abroad—
and I fancy Mr. Carruthers is not the man to
bring an imbecile wife back, if he can help it—
there's no reason why George should come to
England again for years, that I can see."

The driver of the fly pulled up for a minute,
and, letting down one of the front windows,
inquired whether he was to go to the inn or to
the railway station. While Harriet was answering
his question by desiring him to drive to the
station, and looking out of the window, a young
girl on horseback, a large black Newfoundland
dog galloping by her horse's side, passed the
fly. The driver touched his hat respectfully,
and the young lady acknowledged the salute
with her whip.

"That 's Miss Carruthers, ma'am," said the man
to Harriet, giving her the information in a manner
which duly indicated the local importance of
Miss Carruthers. Harriet looked back at the
girl, and noted the golden gleam of her beautiful
hair, the easy swaying of her graceful figure,
the air of youth and refinement which
characterised her.

"That's Miss Carruthers, is it?" she thought.