Foxwood court was alive with gaiety. At least, what stood for gaiety in that inwardly sad and sober house. Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve had come for a fortnight\'s stay. Visits were being exchanged with the neighbours; dinner parties reigned. It was not possible for Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian to accept hospitality and not return it: and--at any rate during the sojourn of the Colonel and his wife--Sir Karl dared not shut themselves up as hermits lest comment should be excited. So the Court held its receptions, and went out to other people\'s: and Sir Karl and Lady Andinnian dressed, and talked, and comported themselves just as though there was no shadow between them.

Lady Andinnian was growing graver day by day: her very heart seemed to be withering. That Sir Karl paid his secret visits to the Maze at night two or three times a week, she knew only too well. One of the most innocent and naturally unsuspicious persons in the world was she: but, now that her eyes had been opened, she saw all clearly. Without watching and tracking the movements of her husband as Miss Blake had tracked them; in her guileless honour she could never have done that; Lady Andinnian was only too fully awake now to the nightly strolls abroad of her husband, and instinct told her for what purpose they were taken.

Life for her at this present time seemed very hard to bear. The task she had imposed on herself--to endure in patience and silence--seemed well nigh an impracticable one. The daily cross that she had apportioned herself to take up felt too heavy for mortal frame to carry. Humiliation, jealousy, love, waged war with each other within her, and rendered her very wretched. It needed all the good and gentle and patient principles instilled into her from early childhood, it needed all the strength she was ever praying for, to hold on perseveringly in her bitter path, and make no sign. At times she thought that the silence to which she was condemned must eat away her heart; but a chance occurrence or two showed her that silence was not the worst phase she might have to bear.

On the day after Mrs. Cleeve\'s arrival, she was upstairs in her daughter\'s chamber. Miss Blake was also there. Lucy had come in, hot and tired, from at afternoon walk to Margaret Sumnor\'s, and Aglaé had been summoned to help her to change her silk dress for an unpretending muslin.

"I did not know it was so hot before I went out, or I would not have put on the silk," observed Lucy, "Sitting so quietly with you all the morning, mamma, in that cool drawing-room, talking of old times, I forgot the heat."

Mrs. Cleeve made no particular reply. She was looking about her; taking silent notice. The doors of communication to the further chamber stood open, as was usual during the day: Lucy took care of that, to keep down suspicion in the house of there being any estrangement between herself and her husband.

"And you have made this your sleeping room, Lucy, my dear?" observed Mrs. Cleeve.

"Yes, mamma."

"And that further one is Sir Karl\'s! Well, I\'m sure you are getting quite a fashionable couple--to have separate rooms. I and your papa never had such a thing in our lives, Lucy."

Lucy Andinnian grew crimson; as if a flush of the summer heat were settling in her face. She murmured, in reference to the remarks, some words about the nights being so very hot, and that she had felt a sort of fever upon her. The very consciousness of having the truth to conceal caused her to be more urgent in rendering some plea of excuse. Aglaé, whose national prejudice had been particularly gratified at the alteration, and who had lived too long in Mrs. Cleeve\'s service to keep in whatever opinion might rise to her tongue\'s end, hastened to speak.

"But, and is it not the most sensible arrangement, madame, that my lady and Sir Karl could have made, when the summer is like an Afric summer for the hotness? Mademoiselle here knows that."

"Don\'t appeal to me, Aglaé," cried Miss Blake, in a frozen tone.

"Yes, yes, Aglaé; I say the fashion is coming up in England; and perhaps it induces to comfort," said Mrs. Cleeve.

"But certainly. And, as madame sees"--pointing through the little sitting-room to the further chamber--"it is but like the same chamber. When Sir Karl is in that and my lady in this, they can look straight at one another."

"Aglaé, see to these shoulder-knots," sharply interposed Lady Andinnian. "You have not put them on evenly."

"And talk to each other too, if they please," persisted Aglaé, ignoring the ribbons to uphold her opinion. "Madame ought to see that the arrangement is good."

"At any rate, Lucy, I think you should have kept to the large room yourself, and Sir Karl have come to the smaller one," said Mrs. Cleeve.

"It\'s the very remark I made to my lady," cried Aglaé, turning at length to regard the ribbons with a critical eye. "But my lady chose herself this. It is commodious; I say nothing to the contrary; but it is not as large as the other."

Oh how Lucy wished they would be silent. Her poor flushed face knew not where to hide itself; her head and heart were aching with all kinds of perplexity. Taking up the eau-de-cologne flask, she saturated her handkerchief and passed it over her brow.

"Has my lady got ache to her head!"

"Yes. A little. Alter these ribbons, Aglaé, and let me go."

"It is because of this marvellous heat," commented Aglaé. "Paris this summer would not be bearable."

Aglaé was right in the main; for it was an unusually hot summer. The intense heat began with Easter, and lasted late into autumn. In one sense it was favourable to Lucy, for it upheld her given excuse in regard to the sleeping arrangements.

Miss Blake had stood all the while with in-drawn lips. It was a habit of hers to show it in her lips when displeased. Seeing always the doors open in the day-time, no suspicion of the truth crossed her. She believed that what she had disclosed to Lucy was no more to her than the idle wind, once Sir Karl had made good his own false cause.

A question was running through Miss Blake\'s mind now--had been in it more or less since Mrs. Cleeve came: should she, or should she not, tell that lady what she knew\' She had deliberated upon it; she had set herself to argue the point, for and against; and yet, down deep in her heart from the first had laid the innate conviction that she should tell. In the interests of religion and morality, she told herself that she ought not to keep silence; for the suppression of iniquity and deceit, she was bound to speak. Had Lucy but taken up the matter rightly, there would have been no necessity for her to have again interfered: neither should she have done it. But Lucy had set her communication at naught: and therefore, in Miss Blake\'s judgment, the obligation was laid upon her. Why--how could she, who was only second to the Rev. Guy Cattacomb in the management and worship at St. Jerome\'s, and might have been called his lay curate; who prostrated herself there in prayer ever so many times a day, to the edification and example of Foxwood--how could she dare to hold cognizance of a mine of evil, and not strive to put an end to it, and bring it home to its enactors? Every time she went to that holy shrine, St. Jerome\'s, every time she came back from it, its sacred dust, as may be said, hallowing her shoes, she had to pass those iniquitous gates, and was forced into the undesirable thoughts connected with them!

If Miss Blake had wavered before, she fully made her mind up now; now, as she stood there in the chamber, the conversation dying away on her ears. Aglaé was attending to the shoulder-knots; Lucy was passive under the maid\'s hands; and Mrs. Cleeve had wandered into the little intermediate sitting-room. No longer a dressing-room; Lucy had given it up as such when she changed her chamber. She had some books and work and her desk there now, and sat there whenever she could. Miss Blake stood on, gazing from the window and perfecting her resolution. She thought she was but acting in the strict line of wholesome duty, just as disinterestedly as the Archbishop of Canterbury might have done: and she would have been very much shocked had anybody told her she was only actuated by a desire of taking vengeance on Karl Andinnian. She wanted to bring home a little confusion to him; she hoped to see the young lady at the Maze turned out of the village amidst an escorting flourish of ironical drums and shrieking fifes, leaving Foxwood Court to its peace. But Miss Blake was in no hurry to speak: she must watch her opportunity.

They were engaged to dine the following day at a distance, four or five miles off; a ball was to follow it. When the time came, Lady Andinnian, radiant in her white silk bridal dress, entered the reception-room leaning on the arm of her good-looking husband. Who could have dreamt that they were living on ill terms, seeing them now? In public they were both cautiously courteous to each other, observing every little obligation of society: and in truth Karl at all times, at home and out, was in manner affectionate to his wife.

Two carriages had conveyed them: and, in going, Lucy had occupied one with her father; Karl, Mrs. Cleeve, and Miss Blake the other. Lucy had intended to return in the same order, but found she could not. Colonel Cleeve, unconscious of doing wrong, entered the carriage with his wife and Miss Blake: Lucy and her husband had to sit together. The summer\'s night was giving place to dawn.

"I fear you are tired, Lucy," he kindly said, as they drove off.

"Yes, very. I wish I was at home."

She drew her elegant white cloak about her with its silken tassels, gathered herself into the corner of the carriage, and shut her eyes, seemingly intending to go to sleep. Sleep! her heart was beating too wildly for that. But she kept them resolutely closed, making no sign; and never another word was spoken all the way. Sir Karl helped her out: the others had already arrived.

"Good night," she whispered to him, preparing to run up the stairs.

"Good night, Lucy."

But, in spite of Lady Andinnian\'s efforts to make the best of things and show no sign, a mother\'s eye could not be deceived; and before Mrs. Cleeve had been many days in the house, she was struck with the underlying aspect of sadness that seemed to pervade Lucy. Her cheerfulness appeared to be often forced; this hidden sadness was real. Unsuspecting Mrs. Cleeve could come to but one conclusion--her daughter\'s health must be deranged.

"Since when have you not felt well, Lucy?" she asked her confidentially one day, when they were alone in Lucy\'s little
sitting-room.

Lucy, buried in a reverie, woke up with a start at the question. "I am very well, mamma. Why should you think I am not?"

"Your spirits are unequal, Lucy, and you certainly do not look well; neither do you eat as you ought. My dear, I think--I hope--there must be a cause for it."

"What cause?" returned Lucy, not taking her meaning.

"We should be so pleased to welcome a little heir, my dear. Is it so?"

Lucy--she had just dressed for dinner, and dismissed Aglaé--coloured painfully. Mrs. Cleeve smiled.

"No, mamma, I think there is no cause of that kind," she answered, in a low, nervous tone. And only herself knew the bitter pang that pierced her as she remembered how certain it was that there could be no such cause for the future.

But Mrs. Cleeve held to her own private opinion. "The child is shy in these early days, even with me," she thought. "I\'ll say no more."

One morning during this time, Karl was sitting alone in his room, when Hewitt came to him to say Smith the agent was asking to see him. Karl did not like Smith the agent: he doubted, dreaded, and did not comprehend him.

"Will you see him, sir?" asked Hewitt, in a low tone, perceiving the lines on his master\'s brow.

"I suppose I must see him, Hewitt," was the reply--and the confidential, faithful servant well understood the force of the must. "Show him in."

"Beg pardon for disturbing you so early, Sir Karl," said the agent, as Hewitt brought him in and placed a chair. "There\'s one of your small tenants dropping into a mess, I fancy. He has got the brokers in ............