It was a fine night, though not unusually light, for there was no moon, and the heavens looked a little misty, as they do sometimes following on a hot August day.

The nine o\'clock train dashed into Guild, received its waiting passengers, and dashed on again.

Amidst others, the Miss Jupps and their brother entered it, having finished their day\'s visit to Mrs. Chester. They took their seats in the middle compartment of a first-class carriage, and happened to have it to themselves. The young ladies sat with their backs to the engine, he with his face to it.

"The Lakes would have had a pleasant day had they come," remarked Louisa. "You may rely upon it her objection lay in its being Sunday. Perhaps she is growing religious."

"What an awful lookout for Lake!" spoke up Mr. Jupp, from his corner.

"Oliver!" reproved the young ladies.

"She\'ll stop his liberty and his cigars," persisted Mr. Oliver: "there are no such martinets under the sun as your religious wives. Talking about cigars, would it affect your bonnets, girls, if I lighted one now?"

They screamed out together. They would not have their loves of new bonnets poisoned and blackened with cigar smoke; they\'d never be fit to go on again. "And you must not smoke in these carriages," added Louisa: "we are near Coombe Dalton station, and the guard would see you."

"Pretty wives you\'ll make when you are married," remarked Oliver. "Afraid of cigar smoke!"

The caution, or the bonnets, caused Oliver Jupp to keep his cigar-case in his pocket. Coombe Dalton station, an insignificant one, was about midway between Guild and Katterley. The train did not stop at it. Oliver leaned from the window to take a survey of the route.

"We are close to it," said he; "yonder are the lights. Halloa! what\'s the red light flashing up and down for? That ought to be a green."

"If a red light is waving in the green\'s place, there must be danger," said Rose, quickly. "Red is the danger signal."

"There\'s no danger. If the light indicated danger the train would come to a standstill; it is going on at the same speed."

Scarcely had the words quitted Oliver Jupp\'s mouth when--they scarcely knew what occurred. There was a shriek from the whistle, a shock; and a shriek, not from the whistle, but from human beings in their terror. The train came to a standstill and they with it: they and their carriage were not hurt or inconvenienced; the carriages behind them were not hurt, nor the carriages immediately before them, but the foremost carriages---- What had happened?

Unstopped, and dashing on in its speed and recklessness, the engine had dashed into some obstruction on the line, a little past Coombe Dalton station. It ran up a bank, gave a dance, and was forced back on the line, falling sideways, and the three foremost carriages, next to the break van, were dragged with it. The two first, third-class ones, were greatly injured; the third, a second class, less so. Oliver Jupp, with other male passengers, was speedily out of his carriage, running forward to see what assistance he could render to those, his ill-fated fellow-creatures, some of whom were groaning in the death agony.

What a scene it was! The dark night; the hissing engine, mad instrument of death, but harmless now; the torches brought forward from the station to throw light upon the calamity; the figures, some dead, some dying, lying in the midst of the wreck; the scalded, the wounded, the bleeding; the silent and the still, the moaning and the helpless, the shrieking and the terrified! Not here, gratuitously to harrow feelings and sympathies, will the worst details be given; and, adding no little to the distress and confusion prevailing, was the uncontrollable alarm of the uninjured passengers, escaping from their carriages and running hither and thither, uncertain where to go or what to do. Katterley (as well as other stations) was telegraphed to for medical assistance.

Meanwhile Robert Lake and his wife had spent an exceedingly sober day. With the passing of the chance of danger, Clara\'s opinion experienced a sort of revulsion; and she began to think--not so much of how foolish she had been, but of how foolish she must appear in the eyes of her practical husband She said nothing; it was the wisest plan; and he had not alluded to it in any way. Quietly the day dragged on, and they sat down to supper in the evening; the dinner hour on Sunday being two o\'clock.

It was at this juncture that Mary Jupp burst in without any ceremony whatever, neither bonnet on her head nor shawl on her shoulders. The news of the accident had spread like wildfire and penetrated to the house of the Jupps. Of course it had lost nothing in carrying; and Mary Jupp fully believed she should never see her sisters or brother again alive.

"Oh, Mr. Lake!--and you to be sitting here quietly at supper! Have you not heard the news?"

They rose up: they saw the state of alarm and agitation she was in. Clara caught the infection, and looked as frightened as her impromptu visitor. Mr. Lake was calm, cool; man in general is so.

"What news?" he asked. "What is it?"

"There has been an awful accident to the train at Coombe Dalton. No particulars positively known, that we can learn, but people are saying half the train\'s killed and the other half wounded."

"Sit down, sit down," said Mr. Lake, taking her trembling hands. "What train? How did the news come?"

"Why, our train!" returned the excited girl, bursting into tears. "The train that Oliver and Louisa and Rose must be in. Oh, Mrs. Lake! was it true that you had a presentiment of evil happening to it?--was that really your reason for declining to go?"

Clara, deathly pale, had sought the eyes of her husband She was overwhelmed with astonishment and dismay; with a feeling that she could not describe and had never yet experienced. Had they really escaped danger, accident, perhaps death, from that strangely vivid dream of warning? Her faculties seemed bewildered.

"How has the news reached Katterley?" repeated Mr. Lake, drowning the words about the dream, for he was conscious that a thoughtless slip of his had given the clue to Miss Jupp.

"By telegraph," she answered; "and one of the porters ran up to our house to tell it, knowing Oliver and the girls went to Guild this morning and took return tickets. The station here is already besieged by a crowd. Poor papa is pushing his way through it."

Mr. Lake caught up his hat, when at the same moment who should come in but Oliver Jupp. Mary seized upon him with a cry.

"Now don\'t smother me," cried he to her. "First of all, we are all right; you see I am, and Rose and Louy are safe and well inside Coombe Dalton Station. My father sent me in to tell you; he said you were here; and he is gone home to reassure them."

"But, Jupp, how did you get to Katterley?" questioned Mr. Lake.

"I came on a stray engine. I thought they would all be in fits together at home, and I took the opportunity offered, of coming on to stop the alarm. The first person who laid hold of me at the station was the poor old governor, pretty nearly in a fit himself. It\'s an awful accident, though."

"How was it?" "Are many hurt?" "Did the boiler really burst?"

"If you all reiterate questions at me at once, how am I to answer? Very few are hurt, comparatively speaking. The engine went into something, a truck or trucks I believe, and there was a smash. The two first carriages, both third-class, are--nowhere, and the passengers I won\'t tell you about, Lake, before these two girls, for it would spoil their night\'s rest. The next carriage, a second-class, was damaged, and its inmates are bruised, but not much, I think."

"And what of the rest of the train?" breathlessly inquired Clara.

"Nothing. The carriages came to a standstill on the line, and we got out of them."

"Are you sure there is no first-class carriage injured?" she continued.

"Certain. So to speak, there has been no accident to the rest of the train, beyond the delay and fright."

Mr. Lake looked at his wife and smiled. "So you would not have been one of the injured, Clary, had you been in the train."

She shook her head. "We have not the full particulars yet. Oliver may be deceived."

"It is exactly as I tell you, Mrs. Lake," said Oliver Jupp. "There is no further damage."

"Are you going back to Coombe Dalton?"

"Yes, as soon as I can. But I thought it well to come on and let you know the best and worst. Lake, will you go with me?"

"Of course," he answered.

The two young men went out together. Mary Jupp ran home, and Clara waited the return of her husband.

It was long past midnight when he came in. They sat up talking over the accident; the details which he had learnt, and seen. Oliver Jupp had been quite correct in his limit of the damage. Mrs. Chester (taking up the suggested notion that Clara Lake had stayed away because it was Sunday) had sent a very pressing invitation for her and her husband to come on the following day, Monday, with the two elder Miss Jupps. Mr. Lake delivered it to her.

"Will you go, Clara?"

"Will they go?" she rejoined. "Will they venture?"

"Venture!"

"After this accident?"

"I do not see why they should not. An accident two days running would be something remarkable. What about your dream?"

"Oh, I will go, Robert. Yes. The dream has done its office and I shall be ever thankful for it."

She spoke the last words reverently. Mr. Lake looked at her with surprise.

"Clara, don\'t encourage that fancy of yours," he gravely said, his voice taking almost a stern tone. "To be superstitious at all argues a want of common sense; but to be foolishly superstitious is a great deal worse. No reasonable being, wife of mine, would indulge that."

"What do you call being foolishly superstitious?"

"The remark you have just made--that the dream had done its office, and you should ever feel thankful for it--is an illustration. Had you gone to Guild this morning, you know quite well that we were not to have returned until Tuesday, therefore should not have been in the train to-night."

"Something might have occurred to cause us to return," she interrupted.

"Granted--for the sake of the argument. We should have travelled in a first-class carriage, as you know; and there is no first-class carriage injured."

He paused and looked at her. She could not deny anything he said, and kept silence.

"Therefore, what possible bearing that dream could have had upon the accident, or where could be the utility of the warning, which, as you declare, it conveyed to you, not to go to Guild, I cannot see."

Neither, it must be confessed, did Clara herself see it; but she did not lose her faith in the dream. Rather believed in it all the more firmly, in what her husband would have called a manner void of all reason.

The dream, as she looked at it and expressed it, had "done its work;" and she anticipated the excursion on the morrow with renewed pleasure, springing from a sense of relief.

Alas, alas! Poor short-sighted mortals that we are! The working out of the ill, shadowed forth, was only just beginning.

The morning rose brilliantly; rather too much so, taken in conjunction with the heat; and the day, as it wore on, promised to be one of the hottest on record.

Katterley station was in a bustle not often experienced at the quiet little place. People, idlers and others, crowded it, bent on a journey of curiosity to Coombe Dalton. The deaths from the accident now numbered several, and excitement was rife. Report came that the real cause of the calamity was giving rise to dispute: on the one hand it was said that the driver of the train had dashed through Coombe Dalton station, regardless of the warning red light, held up as a signal that he should stop; on the other it was maintained that no red light had so been held.

The twelve o\'clock train came steaming into the Katterley station, where it would stay its accustomed three minutes, and those going by it looked alive. A very few passengers got out; a vast many rushed up to take their places. People were flocking to Coombe Dalton en messe; and would be flocking there until public curiosity was sated.

A porter held open the door of a first-class carriage for a party who were struggling on to the platform, one running before another; it consisted of two gentlemen, three ladies, and a maid-servant. The porter knew them well and touched his cap; Mr. and Mrs. Lake, Oliver Jupp, and his two eldest sisters.

"Let us have the compartment to ourselves, if you can manage it, Johnson," said Oliver in an undertone. "The day is too hot for crowding."

"Very well, sir," replied the man. "I dare say I can contrive it."

"But now whereabouts is this carriage?" called out one of the ladies, in a hasty and rather shrieking voice, as she looked to the right and left; "because, if it\'s not just in the middle, I won\'t get in. I\'ll never put myself towards either end of a train again as long as I live."

"Step in, step in," cried Oliver to her. "You are all right."

"Make haste, miss," added the porter. "The time\'s up."

"Of course it\'s up," repeated the young lady, who was no other than Mary Ann Jupp; "and I wonder it wasn\'t up before we reached it. This comes of putting off things till the last moment. I told you all the clocks were slow and we should be late. If there\'s one thing I hate more than another, it\'s the being obliged to rush up and catch a train at the last moment! No time to choose your carriage--no time to see or do anything; they may put you in the guard\'s van if they please, and you not know it until you are off. I dare say we have come without our tickets now. Has anybody thought of them?"

In reply, Oliver Jupp held up the six bits of cardboard for his sister\'s satisfaction, and the party settled themselves in their seats; the maid-servant, who was Mrs. Lake\'s, entering last.

"Why, Elizabeth, is that you?" exclaimed Miss Jupp. "I declare I never saw you."

"Didn\'t you, miss?" replied the girl, who was very tall and thin. "I walked behind you from our house."

"I thought it better to bring Elizabeth," interposed Clara Lake, who was looking unusually lovely in her summer dress--white muslin with a blue sprig upon it. "Mrs. Chester\'s servants will be glad of help with so many of us to wait upon."

"Mrs. Chester is the best manager of a house I ever saw," cried the Miss Jupps in a breath. They wore alpaca gowns of very light green, and hats trimmed with velvet. "Fancy!" added Margaret, "only two servants, and one of those you may almost call a nurse, for the children require plenty of attending to, and yet things seem to go on smoothly. I can\'t think how she contrives it."

"Trust to Mrs. Chester for contriving," said Mr. Lake. "She has to do it. Besides, you forget Anna."

The carriage held eight. Elizabeth sat at the farther end, the seat next to her and the seat opposite to her being empty. She kept her head close to the open window, looking out. Railway travelling was rare in her experience. The rest chatted eagerly, giving themselves up to the pleasure of the moment. Something was said about the previous day\'s sojourn at Guild.

"I hear it was a delightful party," Mrs. Lake remarked to Oliver Jupp.

"We wanted you and Lake to complete it," he answered. "It was too bad, Mrs. Lake, to declare off, after having promised to go. There was an uncommon nice girl spending the day there. She\'s to be there again today, I fancy."

"Who was that?" inquired Mr. Lake, briskly, who had a propensity for liking "nice girls."

"Don\'t know who she was, or anything about her," replied Oliver. "Your sister called her Lydia, and I did the same."

"It was a Miss Clapperton," interrupted Margaret Jupp. "Louisa and Rose were telling me about her this morning; they took an immense fancy to her."

"Clapperton?--Clapperton?" repeated Mr. Lake. "Oh, I know; a fresh family who have come lately to Guild. Penelope said she was getting intimate with them. You shall not pick out nice girls for me, Jupp, if you call her one. I saw her once: a young Gorgon in spectacles, with prominent eyes."

"That\'s Nancy Clapperton, the near-sighted one," corrected Mary Jupp, who was one of those ladies who like to put the world to rights. "It was her sister who was there yesterday, and she is a charming girl. Louy and Rose both say so."

"I hope she\'ll be there today, then," said Mr. Lake.

"She is to be there; but don\'t you and Oliver quarrel over her. He monopolized her yesterday, I hear."

"We\'ll go snacks," said Mr. Lake. "Or else draw lots: which shall it be, Jupp? When does the old Indian Begum make her entry?"

"For shame, Mr. Lake! You do turn everything and everybody into ridicule," exclaimed Margaret. "I\'m sure I think she will be a delightful acquisition; so pleasant for your sister to have a visitor."

"Well, when does she come? Nobody says she won\'t be an acquisition--for those who can stand Begums. I knew one once, and she was awful. She had gold teeth."

Margaret Jupp turned to Clara.

"Why don\'t you keep your husband in better order? He is incorrigible."

"I fear he is," was the answer, given with a gay smile.

"Very strange!" cried Mr. Lake. "I can\'t get an answer to my question: I think it\'s somebody else that\'s incorrigible. When--does--the--Begum--arrive? I hope that\'s plain enough."

"Mrs. Chester was talking of her yesterday to me," interposed Oliver Jupp. "The Begum is expected to make her entrance on Wednesday or Thursday."

"When the house shall have been cleared of us sinful people," added Mr. Lake. "We are not good enough for an Indian Begum. What do you know of this one?"

"As good as nothing," answered Margaret Jupp. "That is, of late years. Papa and mamma used to know old Mr. and Mrs. Finch. He was a lawyer somewhere in London, and Angeline was the daughter."

"Angeline!"

"That\'s her name. Isn\'t it a fine one?"

"Very," said Mr. Lake. "The baptismal people must have foreseen she was destined to be a Begum."

The arrival at Coombe Dalton interrupted the conversation. Slackening its speed, the train came to a standstill. They inquired of a porter how long it stayed, and understood him to say "ten" minutes. So they got out, and heard almost immediately the train puff on again. The man had said "two." Looking at each other in consternation, a laugh ensued. The next train came up at three o\'clock, and they could only wait.

Plenty of time now to examine the scene of the accident. They were not the only spectators. The battered engine, the débris of the carriages were there still--not on the line, but drawn away from it.

"In shunting some trucks on to the other line, one of them broke down, and could not be got off before our train came up," explained Oliver Jupp. "The engine ran into it, and--we were done for."

"But how dreadfully careless of the people at the station to allow your engine to run into it!" exclaimed Margaret. "They ought to have signalled your train to stop."

"They did signal it," interrupted a strange voice at her elbow, and Margaret turned to see the stationmaster, who was known to her brother and Mr. Lake. "The red lights were exhibited at the station, and a switchman waved the red signal light up and down, all to no purpose. You observe that post," he added, pointing to an iron post or pillar close to them, for he perceived she looked as if she scarcely understood him: "that is the night signal-post. When the line is clear, a green light is exhibited on it, as a notice that the trains may pass; but when it is not clear, a red light is substituted, and no train must proceed when the red light is there. Not only was the red light shown there last night, but the switchman, alarmed at the train\'s coming on so quickly, seized it, and waved it to enforce attention. The driver took no notice, and came dashing on to destruction."

"Was he killed?" inquired one of the bystanders, a knot of whom had gathered round.

"No," replied the stationmaster; "and his escape is regarded as next door to a miracle. He was flung from the engine, lay motionless, and was carried off for dead; but it appears he was only stunned, and is nearly well this morning. He\'ll have to stand his trial, of course; and a good thing for him if they don\'t bring it in \'Wilful Murder\'--for that\'s what some of these careless engine-drivers will come to one day."

The official spoke with a good deal of acrimony. If the blame did not lie with the driver, it lay with him, and some hot dispute had been going on already that morning.

"Does the driver deny that the red light was up?" asked Mr. Lake.

"He denies it, and stands to it," said the aggrieved stationmaster. "He says the green lights were up as usual. The man\'s a fool."

"He had taken something to obscure his vision, possibly?"

"Well, no. I don\'t think he had done that. He is a sober man. It is a case of carelessness: nothing else. They go driving on, full pelt, never looking at the signals. On these quiet lines of rail, where there\'s not much traffic, the danger signal is not exhibited for weeks together. They get accustomed to see the other, and it becomes to them so much a matter of course that it must be there, that they forget to look at it at all. That, in my opinion, must have been the cause of last night\'s work, and I see no other possible way of accounting for it."

He turned back to the station as he spoke, and a gentleman, who had drawn near, held out his hand to greet the Lakes and the Jupps. It was Colonel West, an acquaintance who resided at Coombe Dalton.

"Oh, colonel," exclaimed one of the young ladies, "what a shocking accident this has been!"

"Ay, it has. Seven picked up dead, and four more gone this morning; besides legs, and arms, and backs broken. It is awful to think of."

"And all from one man\'s recklessness!" added Mr. Lake, with more severity, more feeling, than he generally suffered himself to display. "As the stationmaster says, they\'ll not be brought to their senses, these drivers, until some of them are convicted of wilful murder. I hope the man who drove the train last night will get his deserts."

The spectators generally, including Oliver Jupp, had strolled off in the wake of the stationmaster, he being the one from whom most news was to be expected, and their curiosity was craving for it. Colonel West, a keen, sensible man of fifty, brought himself to an anchor before Mr. Lake, touching him on the waistcoat to command attention.

"Let me disabuse your mind, at any rate. I hear they are putting the blame on the driver; but he does not deserve it, and they must be doing it to screen themselves. I know nothing of the man; I never saw him in my life until this morning; but I shall stand between him and injustice."

"In what way? what do you mean?" Mr. Lake inquired.

"They say at the station here that they exhibited the danger signal, red, and that the train dashed on regardless of it," said Colonel West. "I went to the inn this morning where some of the wounded are lying, and there I found the driver--as they told me he was--on a mattress on the floor. \'How did this happen?\' I said to him. \'I don\'t know how it happened, sir,\' he replied; \'but I declare there was no red signal up to stop me; the green light was up as usual.\' That was the first I had heard about the red light," continued the colonel; "but I find the man said true, and that the whole blame is laid upon him. Now it happens that I was in my garden last night when the smash came, just over on the other side of the line, and I can bear the man\'s assertion out. It was the green light that was up, and not the red."

"Shameful!" exclaimed Mr. Lake, rising up at once against the injustice in his impulsive way. "I hope, colonel, you will stand by the man."

"You may be sure of that. I\'d transport a reckless driver for life, if I could, but I would never see an innocent man falsely accused."

Having nothing to do with themselves, they strolled into the village, such as it was, the colonel with them. At the door of the small inn, whose floors had been put into requisition the previous night, on the green bench running under the windows, sat the driver of the engine, his head tied up with a white cloth and his arm in a sling. Colonel West introduced him: "Cooper, the driver." Cooper was a man of notoriety that day.

"Why, Cooper!" cried Mr. Lake in surprise the moment he saw the patient, "was it you who drove the engine last night?"

"Yes, sir, it was me," replied Cooper, standing up to answer, but sinking back at once from giddiness. "And I can only say I wish it had been somebody else, if they are going to persist in accusing me of causing the accident wilfully."

Mr. Lake knew him well. He was a young man, a native of Katterley, of very humble origin, but of good natural intelligence and exemplary character. It was only about a month that he had been promoted to be a driver; before that he was a stoker. "I need not have speculated on whether the driver was overcome by strong liquor, had I known who it was," said Mr. Lake.

"He tells me he never drinks," interposed Colonel West.

"Never, sir," said Cooper. "Water, and tea, and coffee, and those sort of things but nothing stronger. I had a brother, sir, who drank himself to death before he was twenty, and it was a warning for me. This gentleman and these ladies knew him."

Mr. Lake nodded acquiescence. "So they say the red light was up, do they, Cooper, and you would not see it?"

"I hear they are saying so at the station, sir; but it\'s very wrong. There was no other light up but the one that is generally up, the green. Should I have gone steaming on, risking death to myself and my passengers, if the danger light had been up? No, sir, it\'s not likely."

"Did you look at the signal light?" inquired Mary Jupp, who was always practical. "Perhaps you--you might, you know, Cooper--have passed it without looking just for once."

"I did look, miss; and I couldn\'t have been off seeing it last night, for it was being swung about like anything. \'What\'s up now,\' I said to myself, \'that they are swinging the lamp about like that?\' and I thought whoever it was doing it, must have had a drop too much."

"But don\'t you think you might from that very fact have suspected danger?" questioned Mr. Lake.

"No, sir, not from the green lamp. If they had wanted to warn me of danger, they should have swung the red. Any way, I\'d rather have given my own life than it should have happened when I was driver."

"Cooper, I saw the green light swung as well as you; and I shall be happy to bear my testimony in your favour at the proper time and place," said Colonel West. "It is quite a providential thing that I happened to be in my garden at the time."

"Thank you, sir," said the man, earnestly, the tears of relief and emotion rising to his eyes.

Whiling away the time in the best way they could, they got back to the station a few minutes before the train for Guild was expected. The accident was the topic of conversation still.

"I have seen the driver," remarked Mr. Lake to the stationmaster. "I know him well, a sober, steady man. He persists still that the red signal was not exhibited; that it was the green."

"Oh, he does, does he?" returned the stationmaster. "He had better prove it. Of course, when they are at their wit\'s end for an excuse, they invent anything, probable or improbable."

"Cooper is not a man to invent. I am sure he is truthful."

"Let him wait till the inquest," was the significant reply.

The train came in, and they were taken on to Guild station. From thence they found their way to Mrs. Chester\'s, losing Oliver Jupp on the road.

"You disagreeable, tiresome things! what brings you here at this late hour?" was the greeting of Mrs. Chester, as she stood at the door, in no amiable mood, to receive her guests. "You knew we were to have dined at three o\'clock, and taken dessert and tea on the lawn, I have been obliged to order the dinner to be put back."

"It was the train\'s fault," said Mr. Lake. "It deposited us halfway and left us."

"Of course you must put in your nonsense, Robert, or it wouldn\'t be you," retorted Mrs. Chester, who could be objectionably cross when put out, especially to him. "Come along with me, girls, and take your things off. Dinner will be on the table in twenty minutes."

She led the way to the staircase with scant ceremony. Mr. Lake touched her arm.

"A moment, Penelope, just to answer me a question. Is Lydia Clapperton here today?"

"Yes," was Mrs. Chester\'s answer, delivered impatiently. "Why?"

"Where is she?"

"In the garden, I think--or perhaps with the children. What do you want to know for?"

"Only to get the start of Oliver. He monopolized her yesterday, I hear."

"Where is Oliver?" demanded Mrs. Chester, suddenly remembering that he had not come.

"Oh! he went into the town to buy cigars, or something of the sort," responded Mr. Lake, as he turned to the garden, glad perhaps to get out of the reach of his sister\'s anger. That something besides their late arrival had put out Mrs. Chester was self-evident.

Across lawns, over flower-beds, behind trees, went Robert Lake, in search of the beauty that to him was as yet a vision--Lydia Clapperton. Good chance--or ill chance, just as the reader may deem--took him to a small summer-house at the end of a shady shrubbery, and in it he discerned a lady sitting; young and pretty, he decided in the semi-light. The lattice was trellised with the green leaves of summer flowers; roses and clematis clustered at the door.

He thought, looking at her in the subdued shade, that she must be four or five-and-twenty. Her dress was young--young for daylight. A rich black silk with a low body and short sleeves, edged by a ruche of white crape, a jet chain on her white neck, and jet bracelets. She had very decided aquiline features, thin and compressed lips. Her eyes were such that would have been called beautiful or hideous, according to the taste or fancy of the spectator: they were large, bold, and intensely black. Her hair was beautiful: a smooth purple black, very luxuriant, and disposed in an attractive manner round the head.

Mr. Lake took a private view through the interstices of the green stalks across the lattice.

"It is Lydia Clapperton," he said to himself; "and a fine girl!"

"There she is!" he began aloud, in his free and somewhat saucy manner--a manner that women like, when displayed by an attractive man--as he bared his head to enter the summer-house, and held out his hand with an abandon of all ceremony.

That she was surprised into the putting forth her hand in return, was indisputable. She had been intently bending over some fancy-work, netting; and she lifted her head with a start at the greeting, and let fall the work.

Mr. Lake took her hand; she looked up at him and saw a gay fascinating man, gentlemanly in the midst of his freedom. Drawing back her hand she sat down again, perfectly self-possessed.

"I told Mrs. Chester I should come and look for you," he said, in explanation. "I have the pleasure of knowing your sister, so we need not wait for a formal introduction."

"And you?" cried the lady, looking puzzled.

"You have heard, no doubt, of Mrs. Chester\'s brother, the scapegrace. She never gives me too good a word. I am out of her books again, through keeping her and the dinner waiting."

It happened that the young lady had never heard of Mr. Lake, as a scapegrace or otherwise. She did not say so, and went on with her netting work.

"Mrs. Chester has been wondering at the non-arrival of some friends she was expecting."

"And fuming at it too," returned Mr. Lake, with a light laugh. "We had an adventure. Getting out at Coombe Dalton in the supposition that there was plenty of time, the train went on without us. I am really sorry, though, for it has delayed your dinner."

"Oh that is nothing," was the answer, spoken in a spirit of politeness. "I would rather not dine at all than dine alone."

Mr. Lake sat down on the bench, took up her scissors, and seemed inclined to make himself at home. She glanced at his bright blue eyes, dancing with light gaiety and with admiration of her fair self.

"I think nothing is more pleasant than a country-house filled with visitors," she observed, tying a sudden break in the silk of her work, and holding out her hand for the scissors to cut the ends off.

"When they can do as they like," added Mr. Lake. "We shall remain until tomorrow night or Wednesday morning, I believe, and must make the most of it. And you--do you remain long?"

"My stay is quite uncertain."

"At least I hope you will be here until Wednesday. After that there\'ll be nothing to stay for; all the pleasure and the freedom must end; liberty will be replaced by restraint."

His tone had become serious. She paused again in her work, and lifted her eyes to speak.

"What restraint?"

"Mrs. Chester has sold her liberty to a Begum. Surely you must have heard of it! An old Indian Begum, who is coming to stay here, and takes possession the middle of the week. We must all be upon our good behaviour before her. No fun to go on then."

"An Indian Begum!" uttered the young lady, staring at him.

"Nothing less formidable, I assure you. She is expected to make the journey from town on an elephant. I shall draw a sketch of her after dinner for private circulation: shawls, fans, woolly hair, and propriety. She\'s a widow; the relict of a Sir George Ellis; we must not so much as whisper before her."

The lady laughed.

"Mrs. Chester has laid down rules for our conduct," he went on, in a rattling sort of fashion. "The last time I was at Guild she saw me snatch a kiss from a pretty girl who was staying with her; and a few days ago she appeared at my house with an inquiry of what I supposed my Lady Ellis would think of such conduct. You have no conception what a nightmare this Begum is to me--this old relict of a K.C.B."

"Really I don\'t wonder. Shawls, fans, woolly hair, and, an elephant! Old and ugly! Did you say ugly?"

"As if a Begum could be anything else! Not that her ugliness or beauty could affect one; but her interfering with the liberty of a fellow--that does it."

"But--according to your version--it is Mrs. Chester who seems to be interfering; not the Begum."

"It is all the same; excepting that, for Mrs. Chester we should not care, and for the Begum, I suppose, we must. I did think of getting a few days\' fishing here this charming weather, but that\'s over now. I shall never stand that Begum--twirling one\'s thumbs before her; and speaking in measured monosyllables."

The young lady bent over her netting; she had made a long stitch. Glancing up, she saw those attractive eyes fastened on her. "Mrs. Chester seems to wish to keep you in order," she remarked, bending them again.

"She does. It is her vocation. I listen to her pretty dutifully, and when her back\'s turned have a good laugh over it. Allow me to try and get that knot undone for you; it is giving you trouble."

"Why, what do you know about netting?" she asked, gaily.

"A great deal. I netted a boy\'s fishing-net once. Those long stitches are the very plague."

"A fishing-net!" she laughed. "Well, perhaps you did; but what do you think you could do to this fine silk: you, with your man\'s fingers?"

"I can try, so as to save the trouble to you." He bent as he spoke, and attempted gently to draw the work from her. She kept it tight. It really looked as though they had no objection, either of them, to lapse into a flirtation, when at that moment voices were heard, and Mr. Lake looked up. Passing across the shrubbery, by an intersecting walk, was Oliver Jupp, with a young lady by his side. She turned her head, and stood still for a moment, calling out to Mrs. Chester\'s children, who were behind, so that Mr. Lake had a view of her face.

"Who the deuce has Jupp picked up now?" murmured Mr. Lake, in a half-whisper. "She\'s an uncommon pretty girl." The lady also looked at them, letting her netting fall on her lap.

"Do you know who that young lady is?" he asked.

She disengaged the string from her foot, got up, and looked from the door. Mrs. Chester\'s children ran across the shrubbery with fleet feet and noisy tongues, and the sound of their voices faded away in the distance.

"It is a Miss Clapperton. Mrs. Chester introduced her to me by that name. Lydia Clapperton, I think, she called her."

Mr. Lake stared in his surprise. "That Lydia Clapperton!"

"Mrs. Chester certainly called her so."

"Why, then--who are you?"

"I? Oh, I am the Indian Begum; but I did not come on an elephant."

His pulses stood still for a moment. But he thought she was playing a joke upon him.

"You are not--you cannot be--Lady Ellis!"

"I am indeed. The old relict of Colonel Sir George Ellis, K.C.B."

Never in all his life had Robert Lake been so taken to, never had he felt more thoroughly confused and ashamed. The hot crimson mounted to his temples. Lady Ellis had sat down again, and was quietly going on with her work.

"I humbly beg your pardon, Lady Ellis," he said, standing before her as shamefaced as any convicted schoolboy. "I cannot expect you to accord it to me, but I most sincerely beg it."

"I think I must accord it to you," she answered, in a pretty tantalizing sort of manner. "Your offence was not against me, but against some fabled monster of your fancy. You shall sketch her still after dinner for private circulation."

The sound of a gong as she spoke gave notice that dinner was ready. Mr. Lake held out his hand with hesitation.

"Will you ratify your pardon, Lady Ellis? Will you promise to forget as well as forgive? I shall never forget or forgive myself."

She frankly put her hand into his as she rose. "I have forgiven; I will promise to forget. But then, you know, you must not convert me into a nightmare."

"You a nightmare!" he impulsively cried, some of his old lightness returning to him. "If you are, it will be one of a different kind: a nightmare of attraction," he gallantly added, as he offered her his arm. "What did you think of me? Did you take me for a wild animal just arrived from the savage islands?"

"No," said Lady Ellis; "that is what you took the Begum for. I found you were under a mistake as soon as you spoke of my sister. I have no sister. But what about your intention of fishing here? I am sorry that I should frustrate it."

He bit his lip; he could not conceal his annoyance. "I thought you promised to forget," he softly whispered.

"And so I will."

"When did you arrive?"

"Only an hour or so ago. Just in time to dress for dinner."

Leaving Lady Ellis in the drawing-room, he ran upstairs in search of his wife, and found her in the chamber which had been assigned them--a pleasant room, looking towards the lawn. She was at work: making a doll\'s frock for Fanny Chester.

"How hot you look!" she exclaimed, as her husband entered. "Your face is crimson."

"My brain is also," he replied. "What do you think?--Lady Ellis is here."

"Mrs. Chester told us so. She had a note from her this morning, and she herself arrived at two o\'clock."

"Clary, I called her the Begum to her face."

"Oh!"

"I don\'t know what else I didn\'t call her: old and ugly, and a nightmare; and said she was coming on an elephant. In short, I did nothing but ridicule her. You see, I took her for that Lydia Clapperton."

Mrs. Lake\'s face turned red in its turn. She was of a refined, deeply-sensitive temperament, ever considerate of the feelings of others.

"What apology can you possibly offer, Robert? How can you make your peace?"

"I have made it already. She seems thoroughly good-natured, and saw the thing as it was--a misapprehension altogether. I\'d rather have given a hundred pounds, though, than it should have happened. Why couldn\'t Penelope open her mouth and tell me she had come and was in the garden?"

He was splashing away at the water, having turned up his cuffs and his wristbands to wash his hands, evidently not on very good terms with himself. His wife put the doll\'s frock into her little ornamental basket and stood up to wait, watching him brush his hair. Then they were ready to go down.

"Clara."

"What?" she asked, turning round to him.

"Don\'t speak of this to any one, my darling. It really has annoyed me. I do not suppose Lady Ellis will."

"Of course I will not." And he bent his hot face over his wife\'s, and kissed it by way of thanks. "What is she like?" asked Clara.

"Young, and very good-looking."

A knock at the door. Mr. Lake opened it. There stood a fair girl of fifteen or sixteen, with soft brown eyes and a pale gentle face. Her hair, of a bright chestnut-brown, was worn plain, and her voice and manners were remarkably sweet and gentle. It was Anna Chester, Mrs. Chester\'s step-daughter. There was a sort of patient weary look about the girl, as if she had long had to do battle with care; her black merino dress, rather shabby, was only relieved by a bit of quilled white net round the throat, and plain stitched linen bands at the wrists.

"Mrs. Chester sent me to tell you that dinner is being taken in."

"We are ready for it. Here, Anna, wait a moment," added Mr. Lake, drawing her in and shutting the door. "What brings that Lady Ellis here? I thought she was not to come until Wednesday or Thursday."

"Neither was she," answered Anna. "It put us out very much this morning when we got her letter, because things were not ready. But we did the best we could."

"That accounts for Penelope\'s sharpness," remarked Mr. Lake. "But she could not have come from Cheltenham this morning, Anna!"

"No, from London. She left Cheltenham on Saturday, she told, us, and wrote from London yesterday."

"Now then, you people!" called out Mrs. Chester\'s voice from the foot of the stairs.

"Come along, Anna," said Mr. Lake.

"Oh, I am not going to dine with you," was the girl\'s answer. "There would be nobody to see that things went on properly, and to wash the forks and spoons."

For Mrs. Chester had not sufficient forks and spoons to serve for all her courses without washing. The dinner was made more elaborate than it need have been, in honour of the first appearance of Lady Ellis at table. Anna Chester spoke cheerfully, with patient meekness, as if it were her province to be put upon; and Robert Lake muttered an angry word in his wife\'s ear about Mrs. Chester\'s selfishness.

In the corridor they encountered Mary and Margaret Jupp, and all descended together. The party was going into the dining-room; Mrs. Chester had momentarily disappeared; Oliver was laughing with Lydia Clapperton; Mr. Lake went up to him and claimed to be introduced; the Miss Jupps seized upon Lady Ellis with greetings and reminiscences of old times; and altogether there was some confusion. Clara Lake, naturally retiring, slipped into the dining-room behind the rest, and took her seat unobtrusively by the side of Fanny Chester. So that it happened she was not introduced to Lady Ellis. That Indian widow, casting her roving eyes around, heard her called "Clara" once or twice by Mrs. Chester, and took her for the governess. A young curate in a straight coat down to his heels, made the tenth at table.

"Mamma said I was to dine here," whispered Fanny, confidentially to Mrs. Lake, "or else there would have been an odd number."

Mr. Lake took the foot of the table, and had Lady Ellis on his right. They talked together a great deal. Altogether it was a very social dinner, plenty of laughing. Anna Chester washed up spoons and forks outside the door, kept the little boys in order, and saw to things generally.

Dinner over, they went on the lawn, where a table was set out with wine and fruit and cakes. But none of them seemed inclined to sit down to it at first; preferring to disperse in groups, and flit about amidst the walks and flowers. Oliver Jupp appropriated Lydia Clapperton, and Mr. Lake was perfectly content that it should be so. For himself he was everywhere; now with Mary Jupp; now with Margaret; now with his sister; and now, and now, and now with Lady Ellis. Chiefly with her: and she by no means objected to the companionship. In short it was a delightful, unceremonious, laisser-aller sort of gathering, with Mrs. Chester seated in her weeds to play propriety, whilst her young boys, left to themselves, got into as much mischief as they possibly could.

"And so you found yourself restless at Cheltenham?" remarked Mr. Lake, as he and Lady Ellis emerged once more in the open ground from some one of the many side walks.

"I get restless everywhere. India suited me best. It may be different, perhaps, when once I settle down."

"I never saw Cheltenham. It is a charming place, according to report."

"At this season it is nothing but heat and dust. I did intend to stay there until the middle of this week; but I couldn\'t do it. I could not, Mr. Lake. So I went up to London on Saturday night, and wrote word to your sister that she must expect me on Monday."

They were crossing the lawn. Seated now near Mrs. Chester, at the table, was Clara Lake, who had been beguiled indoors by Fanny Chester to the doll\'s frock. That important work being accomplished, Clara had come out again. Lady Ellis--her black lace shawl draped artistically round her shoulders, and her very brilliant black eyes darting their glances here and there, fixed their light upon Clara.

"Who is that young lady, Mr. Lake?"

He looked surprised, and then smiled. "Don\'t you know?"

"I don\'t know who she is. I know that she is one of the very boldest girls I ever saw."

"She bold!" returned Mr. Lake, in marked astonishment, while a flush darkened his cheek. "You are mistaken, Lady Ellis."

"Bold; and unseemly bold," repeated Lady Ellis. "I speak of that young lady who is now sitting by Mrs. Chester. Some of them called her \'Clara\' at dinner. I thought she might be the governess, but she seems to take too much upon herself for that."

"I understand of whom you speak. But why do you call her bold?"

Lady Ellis was silent for a moment, and then lifted her head. "When we have lived in India, have travelled--in short, have rubbed off the reserve and rusticity which experience of the world only can effect, we like to speak out our opinion, and call things by their right names. Half an hour ago you were with her in that walk, talking to her; she held your arm, and she suddenly clasped her other hand over it, and kept it there, turning her face up to yours with what looked very like ardent admiration. It struck me as being not--not seemly."

Mr. Lake coughed down a laugh. "She has a legal right to look in my face as ardently as she pleases: and you may fully believe me when I assure you that from her you will never witness aught unseemly. That young lady is my wife."

"Your--wife!" echoed Lady Ellis, taken utterly by surprise.

"My own wife." His saucy blue eyes gazed into those amazed black ones, enjoying their confusion with an exceedingly saucy expression. Lady Ellis burst into a laugh.

"Well, I suppose I must beg your pardon now. We all seem to be letting ourselves in for mistakes and blunders. I thought she was a young girl, and I did not know you were married."

"She does look young," he answered, his eyes following his wife\'s pretty figure, as she went towards the house with Mrs. Chester; "nevertheless she has been my wife these three years."

"You must have married early. Is it wise, think you, of a man to do so?"

"Wise?--In what respect?"

"Repentance might come. Men scarcely know their own minds before thirty."

"A great many of us risk it."

They sat down at the dessert-table, and Mr. Lake helped her to some wine and fruit. One of the little boys ran up and clamoured for good things in the absence of his mother. Lady Ellis privately thought that children did not improve the social relations of the world.

Mrs. Chester had taken Clara to look at what she called the domestic arrangements, which in reality meant the kitchens and back premises in general. Encountering Miss Jupp as they went, she turned to accompany them.

"Had you come at the time you ought, I should have shown you over the house before dinner," grumbled Mrs. Chester, who could not forget the upsetting of her plans.

"Of course we were very sorry," spoke Mary Jupp. "It is so tiresome to put back one\'s dinner after it is at the fire. I should have been more cross than you, Mrs. Chester."

"What with one thing and another, I have been cross enough today," confessed Mrs. Chester, giving a jerk to her widow\'s cap, which never kept on two minutes together, wanting strings. "First of all, this morning, came Lady Ellis\'s letter to upset me, and with nothing ready for her!"

"Why did she come today?"

"Some whim, I suppose. It was a courteous letter of excuse--hoping I should pardon her, and begging me not to treat her as a stranger. How very handsome she is!"

"Her features are handsome," rejoined Mary Jupp; "but their expression\'s bad."

"Bad!" cried Mrs. Chester.

"I think so. There\'s nothing good or kind in them; and she\'s eaten up alive with vanity. You must take care of your husband, Clara, for she seems to covet his admiration."

Clara Lake, who was in advance, looked back and laughed merrily.

"How can you put such notions in her head?" spoke Mrs. Chester, severely. "Robert Lake\'s manners with women are in the highest degree absurd; but there\'s no need for his wife to be reminded of it to her face."

"I don\'t mind being reminded of it, Mrs. Chester. It means nothing."

"Of course it does not. I only hope Lady Ellis will not take offence at him. What age is she, I wonder--five-and-twenty?"

"Five-and-thirty, if she\'s a day!" spoke Mary Ann Jupp, in her strong decision. "She is made-up, you know--cosmetics and that, and dresses to look young. But just look quietly at her when the sun is on her face."

"But she cannot be that age."

"I think she is. I will ask mamma when I get home: she knows."

The subject dropped. Mrs. Chester took them round the house, and in at the back door, showing one thing, explaining another. The larder and the dairy were first entered.

"That is what was once the dairy," observed Mrs. Chester. "Of course, I want nothing of the sort, not possessing cows. It will do to keep herbs and pots and pans in. This is the kitchen," she continued, turning into a large, convenient room on the right of the boarded passage.

"Why, it is like print!" exclaimed Mary Jupp, in her hasty way. "There\'s not a speck of dirt about it; everything is in its place. How in the world have they got it into this order so soon after dinner?"

"This is the best kitchen," explained Mrs. Chester; "they cook in the other. Don\'t you see that there\'s no fire? We shall use this in winter, but while the weather is so hot, I like the cooking done as far from the sitting-rooms as possible. Farm-houses generally have two kitchens, you know. The other is in the yard. You can come and see it."

They went out of the room, but Clara did not. She stood rooted to the spot, like one in a trance, rather than a living, breathing woman. She glanced here, she glanced there; at the doors, the large window, the fireplace; at the furniture, and position of everything. Her breathing came softly; she pressed her brow to make sure she was awake.

Mrs. Chester and Mary Jupp came back, and she had not stirred: her cheek was pale, her hands were clasped, she looked very like a statue. Mrs. Chester began explaining where the several doors led to: one down to the cellar, one to the coal-house, one to the dairy, and one to a china closet; four in all, besides the entrance door. Both of them were too busy to notice her.

"Are you coming, Clara?" asked Miss Jupp, as they went out.

"Directly," she replied, speaking quietly. "Mary, I wish you would find my husband, and tell him I want him here for a minute."

"You want to show him what a model place it is," cried Mrs. Chester, complacently. "Do so, Clara. He will never have such a kitchen in his house."

Mary Jupp delivered the message to Mr. Lake, who was still at the table, and peeling a pear for Lady Ellis. The objectionable boy had disappeared. He came away when he had finished his job, leaving the two ladies together. Mrs. Chester had hastened in dire wrath after the other of her mischievous young sons, who was climbing up a prickly tree, to the detriment of his clothes.

"I had no idea until just now that Mr. Lake was a married man," observed Lady Ellis to Mary Jupp, as she leisurely eat her pear.

"No! Then whom did you suppose Mrs. Lake was?"

"I did not suppose anything about it; I did not know she was Mrs. Lake. Have they been married long?"

"About three years."

"Ah, yes; I think he said so. Any children?"

"There was one. A beautiful little child; but it died. Do you not think her very lovely? It is so sweet a face!"

Lady Ellis shrugged her shoulders. "She has no style. And she seems as much wrapt up in her husband as though they had been married yesterday."

"Why should she not be?" bluntly asked Miss Jupp. "I only hope when I am married--if ever that\'s to be--that I and my husband shall be as happy and united as they are."

"As she is," spoke Lady Ellis. "I would not answer for him."

Mary Jupp felt cross. It occurred to her that somebody might have been whispering tales about Mr. Lake\'s nonsensical flirtation with her sister Rose: and purely innocent nonsense, on both sides, she knew that to be. "Young Lake is one of those men who cannot live without flirtation," she observed, "who admire every woman they meet, and take care to let her know it. His wife can afford to laugh at it, knowing that his love is exclusively hers."

Lady Ellis drew down the corners of her mouth and coughed a little cough of mocking disbelief; for which Mary Jupp, upright and high-principled, could have scolded her for an hour.

"So very old-fashioned, those notions, my dear Miss Jupp. Love!"

"Old-fashioned, are they?" fired Mary.

"A woman hazards more than she perhaps bargains for, when she ties herself, for better or for worse, to one of these attractive men: but of course she must put up with the consequences."

"What consequences?" exclaimed Mary Jupp, feeling herself puzzled by the speech altogether.

"The seeing herself a neglected wife: the seeing others preferred before her--as she must inevitably do when her own short reign is over."

"Had you to experience that?" sharply asked Mary Jupp, intending the question as a sting.

"I!" equably returned Lady Ellis. "My husband had nothing attractive about him, and was as old as Adam. I spoke of the wives of fascinating men: others may humdrum on to their graves, and be at peace."

"I don\'t see what there is to fascinate in young Lake. He is light-headed and careless, if that means fascination."

"Ah," superciliously remarked Lady Ellis, playing with her jet chain.

They were interrupted by Margaret Jupp, who came up with Mrs. Chester. The young lady, hearing of the expedition to the kitchens, was not pleased to have been omitted, so Mrs. Chester was going to do the honours again.

"I think there\'s nothing so nice as looking over a house," said Margaret. "Kitchens have great interest for me."

"I suppose I may not ask to be of the party?" interposed Lady Ellis, looking at Mrs. Chester.

"Certainly you may: why not?" And they slowly strolled across the lawn on the expedition.

Meanwhile Mr. Lake, in obedience to the summons, had found his wife in the large kitchen. She was still standing in the middle of the floor, just as though she had been glued to it.

"Did you want me, Clara?"

"Do come here," she whispered, in quite an awestruck tone. And Mr. Lake, wondering a little, stepped up and stood beside her. Clara, touching his arm, pointed to different features of the room, turning about to do it.

"Do you see them, Robert? Do you remember?"

"I have not been in the kitchen before," was his answer, after a pause, looking curiously at the room and then at her.

"It is the kitchen of my dream!"

"The what?" exclaimed Mr. Lake.

"The kitchen I saw in my dream."

He barely stopped an irreverent laugh. What he saw upon her face arrested it.

"It is," she whispered, her voice sounding strangely hollow, as though some great physical change had taken place within. "I described its features to you that night, and now you may see them. We--we are standing in the same position!" she burst forth more eagerly, as if the fact had but that moment occurred to her. "See! I was here, you on that side me, as you are now; here was the small round dark table close to us; there is the large window, with the ironing-board underneath it; there, to the left, are the dresser and the shelves, and even the very plates and dishes upon them--"

"Of the precise willow pattern," put in Mr. Lake.

"There, behind us, is the fireplace; and around are the several doors, in the very self-same places that I saw them," she continued, too eager to notice or heed the mocking interruption. "I told, you it looked like a farm-house kitchen, large and bleak: you may see that it does, now."

"I shall begin to think that you are dreaming still," he returned.

"I wish I was! I wish I had never seen in reality the kitchen of that dream. I did not at the first moment recognise it. When I came in with Mrs. Chester and Mary Jupp, the place struck me as being familiar, and I was just going to say to them, \'I must have been here before,\' when my dream flashed upon me, like a chill. I felt awestruck--sick; I feel so yet."

"This beats spirit-rapping," said Mr. Lake. "Let us lay hold of the table, and see whether it won\'t turn."

"Why will you turn it into mockery?" she resumed, her tone one of sharp pain. "You know that dream seemed to foretel my death."

"I declare to goodness, Clara, you will make me angry!" was his retort, his voice changing to severity. "What has come over you these last few days?"

"That dream has come over me," she replied, with a shiver. "I thought it was done with; done with by the accident of last night; and now the sight of this kitchen has renewed it in all its horror. If you could, only for one minute, feel as I am feeling, you would not wonder at me."

Her state of mind appeared to him most unaccountable: not foolish; that was not the word; far worse than foolish--obstinate and unreasonable. Never in his life had he spoken so sharply to her as he spoke now. Perhaps his recent intercourse with that equable woman of the world, Sir George\'s relict, had given him new ideas. "I should be sorry to feel it, even for a minute; I should be ashamed to do so: and I feel ashamed for you. What did you want with me?"

"To show you the kitchen. To tell you this."

He gave vent to an impatient word, and turned angrily to the door. She, her heart bursting, went forward to the window. Just so had it been in the dream; just so had they seemed to part, he going to the door and she to the window; just so had been her sharp conviction of coming evil. Mr. Lake looked back at her; she had laid her head against the wall near the window: her hands drooped down; in her whole air there was an utter agony of abandonment. His better nature returned to him, and he walked across the kitchen. As he drew her face from the wall he saw that it was white, and the tears were running down her cheeks.

"Clara," he exclaimed, as he took her to himself, "must I treat you and soothe you as I would a child?"

"No, treat me as your wife," she passionately answered, breaking into a storm of sobs.

He suffered her to sob for a few moments, until the paroxysm had spent itself, and then spoke; in a tone of remonstrance, it is true, but with deep tenderness. "Is it possible that you can allow a foolish superstition, a dream, to cause this wild grief?"

"It is not the dream that is causing the grief. You are causing that: you never so spoke to me: when I said it might foretel my death, you turned my words into ridicule. It is as if you do not care whether I live or die."

"Clara, you know better. What can I do for you? How can I soothe you?"

"Do not speak to me in that tone again."

"My dearest, I will do anything you wish in reason; you know I will, but you must not ask me to put faith in a dream. And if my voice sounded harsh--why, it would vex any man to find his wife so foolish."

"Well, well, it shall pass; I will not vex you with it again. If any ill does come, it must; and if not--"

"If not, you will acknowledge what a silly child you have been," he interrupted, kissing the scalding tears from her face.

"Silly, and superstitious, if you will," she whispered, "but not a child. I think I am less a child at heart than many who are older. Robert, if you ever grew unkind to me, I should die."

"That I never shall, my darling."

Standing outside the half-open door, taking a leisurely survey through the chink, was Lady Ellis, having come noiselessly along the passage matting; not purposely to deceive, she was not aware there was anything to see, but her footsteps were soft, her movements had mostly something cat-like about them. She saw his face bent on his wife\'s, and heard his kisses, all but heard his sweet words; heard quite enough to imagine them. An ugly look of envy, or something akin to it, rose momentarily to her pale features. Legitimate love such as this had never been hers. Mr. Lake was what she had called him, an attractive man. He had that day paid her attentions, said sentimental nothings to her in a low voice; and there are some women who would fain keep such men to themselves, whether they may have wives or not; nay, their having a wife is only an inducement the more. Was Lady Ellis one?

The smile changed its character for that of mockery. It flashed into my lady\'s mind that this little domestic scene was one of reconciliation after dispute, and that the dispute must have had its natural rise in those recent attentions paid to herself. The voices of Mrs. Chester and Margaret Jupp were heard approaching, and she made her safe way back to them.

"Let it pass, let it pass, Clara," Mr. Lake said hastily to his wife, hearing the voices also. "My dear, there is no reason in your fear. What harm do you suppose can arise from your visit here? There is no chance of a breakdown again as we go home."

"It is just that--that I cannot see any probability of harm. But I gave you my word just now to say no more about the matter, and I will keep it."

"Come and walk in the air, it will do you good. Your eyes are as red as if you had been crying for a day, Clara."

Lady Ellis pushed the door open and came in, followed by the others. Mrs. Chester began expatiating upon the conveniences of the kitchen, its closets and cupboards, and Mr. Lake and his wife slipped away. My lady, looking from the window, saw him pass it towards the kitchen garden, his wife upon his arm.