At the end window of the corridor, looking towards the church and village, stood Mary Anne Thornycroft. Not yet had she recovered the recent stormy interview, and a resentful feeling in regard to it was rife within her. The conduct of her father and eldest brother appeared to have been so devoid of all reason in itself, and so gratuitously insulting to Robert Hunter, that Mary Anne, in the prejudice of her love for him, was wishing she could pay them off. It is the province of violent and unjust opposition to turn aside its own aim, just as it is the province of exaggeration to defeat itself; and Miss Thornycroft, conning over and over again in her mind the events of the day, wilfully persuaded herself that Mr. Kyne was right, her father wrong, and that smuggling of lace, or anything else that was valuable, was carried on under (as may be said) the very face and front of their supine house.

Cyril came up the stairs--his book in his hand--saw her standing there, and came to her side. The short winter\'s day was already verging towards twilight, and the house seemed intensely still.

"Is it not a shame?" exclaimed Mary Anne, as Cyril put his arm about her.

"Is what not a shame? That the brightness of the day is gone?"

"You know!" she passionately exclaimed. "Where\'s the use of attempting subterfuge with me, Cyril? Cyril, on my word I thought for the moment that papa and Richard must have gone suddenly mad."

In Cyril Thornycroft\'s soft brown eyes, thrown out to the far distance, there was a strange look of apprehension, as if they saw an unwelcome thing approaching. Something was approaching in fact, but not quite in sight yet. He had a mild, gentle face; his temper was of the calmest, his voice sweet and low. And yet Cyril seemed to have a great care ever upon him;--his mother, whom he so greatly resembled, used to have the same. He was the only one of her children who, as yet, had profited much by her counsel and monition. In the last few years of her life her earnest daily efforts had been directed to draw her children to God, and on Cyril they had borne fruit.

In the German schools, to which he had been sent, in the Oxford University life that succeeded, Cyril Thornycroft had walked unscathed amidst the surging sea of surrounding sins and perils. Whatever temptation might assail him, he seemed, in the language of one who watched his career, only to come out of them more fit for God. Self-denying, walking not to do his own will, remembering always that he had been bought with a price and had a Master to serve, Cyril Thornycroft\'s daily life was one of patient endurance of a great inward suffering, and of active kindness. Where he could do good he did it; when others were tempted to say a harsh word he said a kind one. He had been brought up to no profession; his inclination led him to go into the Church; but some motive, of which he never spoke, seemed to hold him back. Meanwhile Mr. Thornycroft appeared quite content to let him stay on at the Red Court in idleness--idleness as the world called it. Save that he read a great deal, Cyril did no absolute work; but many in Coastdown blessed him. In sickness of body, in suffering of mind, there by the bed-side might be found Cyril Thornycroft, reading from the Book of Life--talking of good things in his low, earnest voice; and sometimes--if we may dare to write it--praying. Dare! For it is the fashion of the world to deride such things when spoken of--possibly to deride them also in reality.

And now that is all that will be said. It was well to say it for the satisfaction of the readers, as will be found presently, even though but one of those readers may be walking in a similar earnest path, the world lying on one hand, heaven on the other.

"Courtesy is certainly due to Mr. Hunter, and I am sorry that my father and Richard forgot it," resumed Cyril. "When does he leave?"

"On Saturday," she answered, sullenly.

"Then--endeavour to let things go on peaceably until that time. Do not excite him by any helping word on your part to oppose home prejudices. Believe me, Mary Anne, my advice is good. Another such scene as there was to-day, and I should be afraid of the ending."

"What ending?"

"That Richard might turn him out of the house."

Miss Thornycroft tossed her head. "Richard would be capable of it."

"Let us have peace for the rest of his sojourn here, forgetting this morning\'s episode. And--Mary Anne--do not ask him to prolong his visit beyond Saturday."

He looked with kindly earnestness into her eyes for a moment as if wishing to give impression to the concluding words, and then left her to digest them: which Miss Thornycroft was by no means inclined to do pleasantly. She was picking up the notion that she would be required to give way to her brothers on all occasions; here was even Cyril issuing his orders now! Not ask Robert Hunter to stay over Saturday!--when her whole heart had been set upon his doing it!

Playing with her neck-chain, tossing it hither and thither, she at length saw Robert Hunter come strolling home from the village, his air listless, his steps slow; just like a man who is finding time heavy on his hands.

"And not one of them to be with him!" came her passionate thought. "It is a shame. Bears! Why! who\'s this?"

The exclamation--cutting short the complimentary epithet on her brothers, though it could not apply with any sort of justice to Cyril, who had been prevented by his father from following Robert Hunter--related to a Jutpoint fly and pair. Driving in at the gates, it directly faced Mary Anne Thornycroft; she bent her eyes to peer into it, and started with surprise.

"Good gracious! What can bring her here?"

For she recognised Lady Ellis; with a maid beside her. And yet, in that pale, haggard, worn woman, who seemed scarcely able to sit upright, there was not much trace of the imperious face of her who had made for so brief a period the Red Court her home. Illness--long-continued illness, its termination of necessity fatal--changes both the looks and the spirit.

The chaise had passed Robert Hunter at right angles: had my lady recognised him?

But a moment must be given to Cyril. On descending the stairs, he saw Richard striding out at the front door, and hastened after him.

"Where are you going, Richard?"

"Where am I going?" retorted Richard. "To Tomlett\'s, if you must know. Something must be done."

Cyril laid his calm hand on his brother\'s restless one, and led him off towards the plateau.

"Do nothing, Richard. You are hasty and incautious. They cannot make any discovery."

"And that fellow talking of going to sound the rocks, with his boasted engineering experience?"

"Let him go. If the square sounds as hollow as his head, what then? They can make nothing else of it. No discovery can be made from the outside; you know it can not; and care must be taken that they don\'t get in."

"Perhaps you would not care if they did," spoke Richard in his unjust passion.

"You know better," said Cyril, sadly. "However I may have wished that certain circumstances did not exist, I would so far act with you now as to ward off discovery. I would give my life, Richard, to avert pain from you all, and disgrace from the Red Court\'s good name. Believe me, nothing bad will come of this, if you are only cautious. But your temper is enough to ruin all--to set Hunter\'s suspicions on you. You should have treated it derisively, jokingly, as I did."

Richard, never brooking interference, despising all advice, flung Cyril\'s arm aside, and turned off swearing, meeting Isaac, who was coming round by the plateau.

"Isaac, we are dropped upon."

"What?"

"We are dropped upon, I say."

"How? Who has done it?"

"That cursed fellow Mary Anne brought here--Hunter. He and Kyne have been putting their heads together; and, by all that\'s true, they have hit it hard. They had got up a suspicion of the rocks; been sounding the square rock, and found it hollow. Kyne has scented the cargo that\'s lying off now."

The corners of Isaac Thornycroft\'s mouth fell considerably. "We must get that in," he exclaimed. "It is double the usual value."

"I wish Hunter and the gauger were both hanging from the cliffs together!" was Richard\'s charitable conclusion, as he strode onwards. "It was a bad day\'s work for us when they moved Dangerfield. I\'m on my way now to consult with Tomlett; will you come?"

Isaac turned with him. Bearing towards the plateau, but leaving it to the right--a road to the village rarely taken by any but the Thornycroft family, as indeed nobody else had a right to take it, the waste land belonging to Mr. Thornycroft--they went on to Tomlett\'s, meeting Mr. Kyne en route, with whom Isaac, sunny-mannered ever, exchanged a few gay words.

Cyril meanwhile strolled across the lawn as far as the railings, and watched them away. He was deep in thought; his eyes were sadder than usual, his high, square brow was troubled.

"If this incident could but turn out a blessing!" he half murmured. "Acted upon by the fear of discovery through Kyne\'s suspicions, if my father would but make it a plea for bringing things to a close, while quiet opportunity remains to him! But for Richard he would have done so, as I believe, long ago."

Turning round at the sound of wheels, Cyril saw the fly drive in. Reaching it as it drew up to the door, he recognised his stepmother. Mary Anne came out, and they helped her to alight. Hyde, every atom of surprise he possessed showing itself in his countenance, flung wide the great door. She leaned on Cyril\'s arm, and walked slowly. Her cheeks were hollow, her black eyes were no longer fierce, but dim; her gown sat about her thin form in folds.

"My dears, I thought your father would have had the carriage waiting for me at Jutpoint."

"My dears!" from the once cold and haughty Lady Ellis! It was spoken in a meek, loving tone, too. Mary Anne glanced at Cyril.

"I am sure my father knew nothing of your intended arrival," spoke Cyril; "otherwise some of us would certainly have been at Jutpoint."

"I wrote to tell him; he ought to have had the letter this morning. I have been a little better lately, Cyril; not really better, I know that, but more capable of exertion; and I thought I should like to have a look at you all once again. I stayed two days in London for rest, and wrote yesterday."

She passed the large drawing-rooms, and turned of her own accord into the small comfortable apartment that was formerly the school-room, and now the sitting-room of Mary Anne. Cyril drew an easy-chair to the fire, and she sat down in it, letting her travelling wraps fall from her. Sinnett, who had come in not less amazed than Hyde, picked them up.

"You are surprised to see me, Sinnett."

"Well--yes, I am, my lady," returned Sinnett, who did not add that she was shocked also. "I am sorry to see you looking so poorly."

"I have come for a few days to say good-bye to you all. You can take my bonnet as well."

Sinnett went out with the things. It was found afterwards that the letter, which ought to have announced her arrival, was delayed by some error on the part of the local carrier. It was delivered in the evening.

As she sat there facing the light, the ravages disease was making showed themselves all too plainly in her wasted countenance. In frame she was a very skeleton, her hands were painfully thin, her black silk gown hung in folds on her shrunken bosom. Mary Anne put a warm foot-stool under her feet, and wrapped a shawl about her shoulders; Cyril brought a glass of wine, which she drank.

"I have to take a great deal of it now, five or six glasses a day, and all kinds of strengthening nourishment," she said. "Thank you, Cyril. Sometimes I lie and think of those poor people whose case is similar to mine, and who cannot get it."

How strange the words sounded from her! Thinking for others! Miss Thornycroft, remembering her in the past, listened in a sort of amused incredulity, but a light as of some great gladness shone in the eyes of Cyril.

As he left the room to search for his father, who had gone out, Robert Hunter entered it. Seeing a stranger there, an apparent invalid, he was quitting it again hastily when Mary Anne arrested him.

"You need not go, Robert; it is my stepmother, Lady Ellis. Mr. Hunter."

At the first moment not a trace could he find of the handsome, haughty-faced woman who had beguiled him with her charms in the days gone by. Not a charm was left. She had left off using adjuncts, and her face was almost yellow; its roundness of contour had gone; the cheeks were hollow and wrinkled, the jaws angular. Only by the eyes, as they flashed for a moment into his with a sort of dismayed light, did he recognise her. Bowing coldly, he would have retreated, but she, recovering herself instantly, held ............