In the evening Tom had looked in at his usual hour, and was recruiting himself with his big mug of beer and lump of bread and cheese at the kitchen table, and now the keen edge of appetite removed, he was talking agreeably. This was what he called his supper. The flush of sunset on the sky was fading into twilight, and Tom was chatting with old Mildred Tarnley.

“Who’d think it was only three weeks since the funeral?” said Tom—“three weeks tomorrow.”

“Ay, tomorrow. ’Twas a Thursday, I mind, by the little boy comin’ from Gryce’s mill, for the laundress’s money, by noon. Two months ago, to look at him, you’d a said there was forty years’ life in him; but death keeps no calendar, they say. I wonder Harry Fairfield isn’t here oftener. Though she might not talk wi’ him nor see him, the sound o’ his voice in the house would do her good—his own brother, you know.”

“Dead men, ’tis an old sayin’, is kin to none,” said Tom. “They goes their own gate, and so does the livin’.”

“There’s that woman in jail. What’s to be done wi’ her, and who’s to talk wi’ the lawyer folk?” said Mildred.

“Ill luck came wi’ her to Carwell,” said Tom. “Pity he ever set eyes on her; but chances will be, and how can cat help it if maid be a fool? I don’t know nothin’ o’ that business, but in this world nout for nout is the most of our wages, and I take it folks knows what they are about, more or less.”

Mildred Tarnley sniffed at this oracular speech, and turned up her nose, and went over to the dresser and arranged some matters there,

“The days is shortening apace. My old eyes can scarce see over here without a candle,” she said, returning. “But there’s a many a thing to be settled in this house, I’m thinkin’.”

Tom nodded an acquiescence, and stood up and stretched himself, and looked up to the darkening sky.

“The crows is home in Carwell Wood; ’twill be time to be turning keys and drawing of bolts,” said Tom. “Ay, many a thing ’ll want settlin’, I doubt, down here, and who’s to do it?”

“Ay, who’s to do it?” repeated Mildred. “I tell ye, Tom, there’s many a thing—too many a thing—more than ye wot of—enough to bring him out o’ his grave, Tom—as I’ve heered stories, many a one, wi’ less reason.”

As she ceased, a clink of a horseshoe was heard in the little yard without, and a tall figure leading a horse, as Charles Fairfield used often to do, on his late returns to his home, looked in at the window—in that uncertain twilight, in stature, attitude, and, as well as she could see, in face, so much resembling the deceased master of Carwell Grange, that Mrs. Tarnley gasped——

“My good Lord! Who’s that?”

Something of the same momentary alarm puzzled Tom, who frowned wildly at it, with his fists clenched beside him.

It was Harry Fairfield, who exhibited, as sometimes happens in certain lights and moments, a family resemblance, which had never struck those most familiar with his appearance.

“Lawk, it’s Mr. Harry; run out, Tom, and take his nag, will ye?”

Out went Tom, and in came Harry Fairfield. He looked about him. He did not smile facetiously and nod, and take old Mildred’s dubious hand, as he was wont, and crack a joke, not always very welcome or very pleasant, to the tune of

“Nobody coming to marry me—

Nobody coming to woo.”

On the contrary, he looked as if he saw-nothing there but walls and twilight, and as heavy laden with gloomy thoughts as the troubled ghost she had imagined.

“How is Miss Ally? how is your mistress?” at last he inquired abruptly. “Only middling?”

“Ailing, sir,” answered Mildred, dryly.

“Tell her I’m here, will ye? and has something to tell her and talk over, and will make it as short as I can. Tell her I’d a come earlier, but couldn’t, for the sessions at Wykeford, and dined wi’ a neighbour in the town; and say I mayn’t be able to come for a good while again. Is she up?”

“No, sir, the doctor keeps her still to her bed.”

“Well, old Dulcey Crane’s there; ain’t she?”

“Ay, sir, and Lilly Dogger, too. Little good the slut’s to me these days.”

Harry was trying to read his watch at the darkened window.

“Tell her all that—quick, for time flies,” said Harry.

Harry Fairfield remained in the kitchen while old Mildred did his message, and she speedily returned to say that Alice was sitting up by the fire, and would see him.

Up the dim stairs went Harry. He had not been up there since the day he saw the undertakers at Charlie’s coffin, and had his last peep at his darkening face. Up he strode with his hand on the banister, and old Mildred gliding before him like a shadow. She knocked at the door. It was not that of the room which they had occupied, where poor Charles Fairfield had died, but the adjoining one, hurriedly arranged, with such extemporized comforts as the primitive people of the household could manage—homely enough, but not desolate, it looked.

Opening the door, she said—“Here’s Master Harry, ma’am, a-comin’ to see you.”

Harry was already in the room. There were candles lighted on a little table near the bed, although the shutters were still open, and the faint twilight mingling with the light of the candles made a sort of purple halo. Alice was sitting in a great chair by the fire in her dressing-gown, pale, and looking very ill. She did not speak; she extended her hand.

“Came to see you. Ally. Troublesome world; but you must look up a bit, you know. Troubles are but trials, they say, and can’t last for ever; so don’t you be frettin yourself out o’ the world, lass, and makin’ more food for worms.”

And with this consolation he shook her hand.

“I would have seen you, Harry, when you called before—it was very kind of you—but I could not. I am better now, thank God. I can’t believe it still, sometimes,” and her eyes filled with tears—

“Well, well, well,” said Harry, “whereas the good o’ cryin’; cryin’ won’t bring him back, you know. There, there. And I want to say a word to you about that woman that’s in jail, you know. ’Tis right you should know everything. He should a told you more about that, don’t you see, else ye might put your foot in it.”

Paler still turned Alice at these words.

“Tell them to go in there,” said he in a lower tone, indicating with his thumb over his shoulder, a sort of recess at the far end of the room, in which stood a table with some work on it.

At a word from Alice old Dulcibella called Lilly Dogger into that distant “alcove,” as Mildred termed it.

“It’s about that woman,” he continued, in a very low tone, “about that one—Bertha. That woman, you know, that’s in Hatherton Jail, you remember. There’s no good prosecuting that one. Poor Charles wouldn’t have allowed it at no price.”

“He said so. I wouldn’t for the world,” she answered very faintly.

“No, of course; he wished it, and we’d like to see his wishes complied with, poor fellow, now he’s gone,” acquiesced Harry with alacrity. “And you know about her?” he added, in a very low tone.

“Oh no, no, Harry; no, please,” she answered imploringly.

“Well, it wouldn’t do for you, you know, to be gettin’ up in the witness-box at the ’sizes to hang her, ye know.”

“Oh dear, Harry; no, I never could have thought of it.”

“Well, you are not bound, luckily; nor no one. I saw Rodney today about it; there’s no recognizances—he only took the informations—and I said you wouldn’t prosecute; nor I won’t, I’m sure; and the crown won’t take it up, and so it will fall through, and end quietly—the best way for you; for, as I told him, you’re no............