Sitting by the fire in the pretty bedroom with the candles on the table, and the chintz curtains drawn before the window, shutting out the pine-walk and any unearthly sight that might be in it, I thought and resolved. To remain at Chandos with its ostensible master in his present mood was excessively undesirable, almost an impossibility; and I began to think I might quit it without waiting for an answer from Miss Barlieu. The chief difficulty would be the getting away; the actual departure; for Mr. Chandos was certain to oppose it. Another difficulty was money.

It struck me that the only feasible plan would be to see Lady Chandos. I would tell her that I must go, not mentioning why; ask her to sanction it, and to lend me enough money to take me to Nulle. I did not see that I could leave without seeing her; certainly not without making her acquainted with the proposed fact, and thanking her for her hospitality and kindness. Heroines of romance, read of in fiction, might take abrupt flight from dwellings by night, or else; but I was nothing of the sort; only a rational girl of sober, everyday life, and must act accordingly.

"Do you happen to know how Lady Chandos is to-night, Harriet?" I asked, when the maid came in to inquire whether I wanted anything more.

"Her ladyship\'s a trifle better, Miss. I have just heard Hill say so."

Harriet left the room; and I sat thinking as before. That my seeing Lady Chandos could only be accomplished by stratagem I knew, for Hill was a very dragon, guarding that west wing. If it was really Lady Chandos who had been pacing the grounds--and Mrs. Penn was positive in her assertion and belief--she must undoubtedly be well enough to speak to me. It was but a few words I had to say to her; a few minutes\' time that I should detain her. "Circumstances have called me away, but I could not leave without personally acquainting you, madam, and thanking you for your hospitality and kindness." Something to that effect: and then I would borrow the money--about forty, or fifty francs; which Miss Barlieu would give me to remit, as soon as I got to Nulle. With Lady Chandos\'s sanction to my departure, Mr. Chandos could not put forth any plea to detain me.

Never were plans better laid than mine--as I thought. Rehearsing them over and over again in my mind after I, lay down in bed, the usual sleeplessness followed. I tossed and turned from side to side; I began to repeat verses; all in vain. Sleep had gone away from me, and I heard the clock strike two.

I heard something else: a stir in the gallery. It seemed as if some one burst out at the doors of the west wing, and came swiftly to the chamber of Mr. Chandos. In the stillness of night, sounds are plainly distinct that would be inaudible in the day. The footsteps were like Hill\'s, as if she had only stockings on. There was a brief whispering in Mr. Chandos\'s chamber, and the same footsteps ran back to the west wing.

What could be the matter? Was Lady Chandos worse? Almost as I asked myself the question, I heard Mr. Chandos come out of his room, go downstairs, and out at the hall-door. Curiosity led me to look from the window. The stars were shining; I suppose it was a frost; and the tops of the dark pine-trees rose clear and defined against the sky. All was quiet.

A very few minutes and other sounds broke the silence: those of a horse\'s footsteps. Mr. Chandos--as I supposed it to be--came riding forth at a canter from the direction of the stables: the pace increasing to a gallop as he turned into the broad walk.

There seemed less sleep for me than ever. In about an hour\'s time I heard Mr. Chandos ride in again. I heard him ride round to the stables, and come back thence on foot. He let himself in at the hall-door, came softly upstairs, and went into the west wing. It was in that wing that something must be amiss.

I was three-parts dressed in the morning when Mrs. Penn knocked at my door and entered. I did wish she would not thus interrupt me! Once she had come when I was reading my chapter; once during my prayers.

"Did you hear any disturbance in the night?" she began. "Mr. Chandos went out at two o\'clock. Do you know what for?"

"Mrs. Penn! How should I be likely to know?"

"I happened to be up, looking from the end window----"

"At that time of night?" I interrupted.

"Yes, at that time of night," she repeated. "I was watching for--for--the ghost if you will" (but I thought somehow she said the ghost to mystify me), and so I may as well confess it. "I often do watch from my window at night. Quite on a sudden a figure appeared making its way swiftly towards the stables; my heart stood still for a moment; I thought the ghost had come at last. I did, Anne Hereford: and you need not gaze at me with your searching eyes, as if you questioned my veracity. But soon I recognised Mr. Chandos, and presently saw him come back on horseback. Where did he go? For what purpose?"

"You put the questions as though you thought I could answer them," I said to her; and so she did, speaking in a demanding sort of way. "I cannot tell where Mr. Chandos has gone."

"He is back now: he was home again in about hour. I would give the whole world to know!"

"But why? What business is it of yours or mine? Mr. Chandos\'s movements are nothing to us."

"They are so much to us--to me--that I would forfeit this to be able to follow him about and see where he goes and what he does," she said, holding up her right hand.

I looked at her in wonder.

"I would. Is it not a singular sort of thing that a gentleman should rise from his bed at two o\'clock in the morning, saddle his horse by stealth, and ride forth on a mysterious journey?"

"It is singular. But he may not have saddled his horse by stealth."

"How now?" she tartly answered. "He did saddle it; saddled it himself."

"Yes: but that may have been only from a wish not to disturb the grooms from their rest. To do a thing oneself with a view of sparing others, and to do it stealthily are two things."

"So your spirit must rise up to defend him still! Take care of yourself, Anne Hereford!"

"Nay, there was no defence. What does it signify whether Mr. Chandos saddles a horse for himself or gets a man to saddle it?"

"Not much, perhaps; looking at it in the light you do."

"Mrs. Penn, I wish you would please to go, and let me finish dressing. I am afraid of being late."

Rather to my surprise, she moved to the door without another word, and shut it behind her.

I went down to breakfast: I could not help myself. It would not do to plead illness or the sulks, and ask to have my meals sent upstairs. But we had a third at table, I found; and that was Dr. Laken. I am not sure how I and Mr. Chandos should have got on without him; with him all went smoothly.

But not merrily. For both he and Mr. Chandos spoke and looked as if under the influence of some great care. Listening to their conversation, I discovered a rather singular circumstance. Mr. Chandos\'s errand in the night had been to the telegraph office at Warsall, to send an imperative message for Dr. Laken. That gentleman (almost as though a prevision had been upon him that he would be wanted) had started for Chandos the previous evening by a night train, and was at Chandos at seven in the morning. So that he and the message crossed each other. His visit was of course--though I was not told it--to Lady Chandos; and I feared there must be some dangerous change in her. They talked together, without reference to me.

"I wish you could have remained," Mr. Chandos suddenly said to the doctor.

"I wish I could. I have told you why I am obliged to go, and where. I\'ll be back to-night, if I can; if not, early to-morrow. Remember one thing, Mr. Harry--that my staying here could be of no possible benefit. It is a satisfaction to you, of course, that I should be at hand, but I can do nothing."

"Mr. Dexter is here, sir, and wishes to see you," said Hickens, entering the parlour at this juncture. "He says he is sorry to disturb you so early, sir, but he is off to that sale of stock, and must speak to you first. I have shown him into your private room, sir."

Mr. Chandos rose from his seat and went out. And now came my turn. I was alone with Dr. Laken, and seized on the opportunity to inquire about Lady Chandos. See her I must, and would.

"Is Lady Chandos alarmingly ill, Dr. Laken?"

He was eating an egg at the time, and he did not speak immediately: his attention seemed almost equally divided between regarding me and finishing the egg.

"What you young ladies might call alarmingly ill, we old doctors might not," were his words, when he at length spoke.

"Can she speak?"

"Oh, yes."

"And is sufficiently well to understand, if any one speaks to her?"

"Quite so. Don\'t trouble yourself, my dear, about Lady Chandos. I trust she will be all right with time."

Not another word did I get from him. He began talking of the weather; and then took up a newspaper until Mr. Chandos came back. As I was leaving them alone after breakfast, Mr. Chandos spoke to me in a half-grave, half-jesting tone.

"You are one of the family, you know, Miss Hereford, and may be asked to keep its affairs close, just as Emily would be were she here. Don\'t mention that I went to Warsall in the night--as you have now heard I did go. It is of no use to make the household uneasy."

And, as if to enforce the words, Dr. Laken gave three or four emphatic nods. I bowed and withdrew.

To see lady Chandos? How was it to be done? And, in spite of Dr. Laken\'s reassuring answer, I scarcely knew what to believe. Hill went about with a solemn face, silent as the grave; and an impression pervaded the household that something was very much amiss in the west wing. My impression was, that there was a great deal of unaccountable mystery somewhere.

"Harriet," I said, as the girl came to my room in thin course of her duties, "how is Lady Chandos?"

"Well, Miss, we can\'t quite make out," was the answer. "Hill is in dreadful trouble, and the doctor is here again; but Lizzy Dene saw my lady for a minute this morning, and she looked much as usual."

So far well. To Lady Chandos I determined to penetrate ere the day should close. And I am sure, had anybody seen me that morning, dodging into the gallery from my room and back again, they would have deemed me haunted by a restless spirit. I was watching for my opportunity. It did not come for nearly all day. In the morning Dr. Laken and Mr. Chandos were there; in the afternoon Hill was shut up in it. It was getting dusk when I, still on the watch, saw Hill come forth. She left the door ajar, as if she intended to return instantly, and whisked into a large linen-closet close by. Now was my time. I glided past the closet, quiet as a mouse, and inside the green-baize door of the west wing.

But which was the room of Lady Chandos? No time was to be lost, for if Hill returned, she was sure to eject me summarily, as she had done once before. I softly opened two doors, taking no notice of what the rooms might contain, looking only whether Lady Chandos was inside. Next I came to one, and opened it, as I had the others; and saw--what? Who--who was it sitting there? Not Lady Chandos.

In a large arm-chair at the fire, propped up with pillows, sat an emaciated object, white, thin, cadaverous. A tall man evidently, bearing in features a great resemblance to Mr. Chandos, a strange likeness to that ghostly vision--if it had been one--I had once seen in the gallery. Was he the ghost?--sitting there and staring at me with his large eyes, but never speaking? If not a ghost, it must be a living skeleton.

My pulses stood still; my heart leaped into my mouth. The figure raised his arm, and pointed peremptorily to the door with his long, lanky, white fingers. A sign that I must quit his presence.

I was glad to do so. Startled, terrified, bewildered, I thought no more of Lady Chandos, but went back through the passage, and out at the green-baize door. There, face to face, I encountered Mr. Chandos.

I shall not readily forget his face when he looked at me. Never had greater hauteur, rarely greater anger, appeared in the countenance of any living man.

"Have you been in there?" he demanded.

"Yes. I----" More I could not say. The words stuck in my throat.

"Listen, Miss Hereford," he said, his lips working with emotion. "I am grieved to be compelled to say anything discourteous to a lady, more especially to you, but I must forbid you to approach these rooms, however powerfully your curiosity may urge you to visit them. I act as the master of Chandos, and demand it as a right. Your business lies at the other end of the gallery; this end is sacred, and must be kept so from intrusion."

I stole away with my crimsoned face, with a crimsoned brain, I think, wishing the gallery floor would open and admit me. Hill came out of the closet with wondering eyes; Mr. Chandos went on, and shut the door of the west wing after him. I felt ashamed to sickness. My "curiosity!"

But who could it be, he whom I had just seen, thus closeted in the apartments of Lady Chandos? Could it be Sir Thomas, arrived from abroad? But when did he arrive? and why this concealment in his mother\'s rooms? for concealment it appeared to be. Whoever it was, he was fearfully ill and wasted: of that there could be no doubt; ill, as it seemed to me, almost unto death; and a conviction came over me that Dr. Laken\'s visits were paid to him, not to Lady Chandos.

"My dear child, how flushed and strange you look!"

The speaker was Mrs. Penn, interrupting my chain of thought. She was standing at the door of the east wing, came forward, and turned with me into my room.

"Anne," she continued, her tone full of kind, gentle compassion, "was Mr. Chandos speaking in that manner to you?"

"I deserved it," I sighed, "for I really had no right to enter the west wing clandestinely. I went there in search of Lady Chandos. I want to leave, but I cannot go without first seeking her, and I thought I would try to do so, in spite of Hill."

"And did you see her?" questioned Mrs. Penn.

"No; I could not see her anywhere; I suppose I did not go into all the rooms. But I saw some one else."

"Who was it?"

"The strangest being," I answered, too absorbed in the subject, too surprised and bewildered, to observe my usual custom of telling nothing to Mrs. Penn. "He was sitting in an easy-chair, supported by pillows; a tall, emaciated man, looking--oh, so ill! His face was the thinnest and whitest I ever saw; but it had a likeness to Mr. Chandos."

Had I been more collected, I might have seen how the revelation affected Mrs. Penn. Just then my eyes and senses were, so to say, blinded. She put her hand on my arm, listening for more.

"He startled me terribly; I declare, at first sight, I did think it was a ghost. Why should he be hidden there?--if he is hidden. Unless it is Sir Thomas Chandos come home from India--Mrs. Penn! what\'s the matter?"

The expression of her countenance at length arrested me. Her face had turned white, her lips were working with excitement.

"For the love of Heaven, wait!" she uttered. "A tall man, bearing a family likeness to Mr. Chandos--was that what you said?"

"A striking likeness: allowing for the fact that Mr. Chandos is in health, and that the other looks as though he were dying. The eyes are not alike: his are large and dark, Mr. Chandos\'s blue. Why? Perhaps it is Sir Thomas Chandos."

"It is not Sir Thomas; he is a short, plain man, resembling his mother. No, no; I know too well who it is; and it explains the mystery of that west wing. All that has been so unaccountable to me since I have dwelt at Chandos is plain now. Dolt that I was, never to have suspected it! Oh! but they were clever dissemblers, with their sicknesses of my Lady Chandos!"

She went out, and darted into the east wing. So astonished was I, that I stood looking after her, and saw her come quietly forth again after a minute or two, attired to go out. She was gliding down the stairs, when Mrs. Chandos likewise came from the east wing and called to her.

"Mrs. Penn, where are you going? I want you."

Mrs. Penn thus arrested, turned round, a vexed expression on her face.

"I wish to do a very slight errand for myself, madam. I shall not be long."

"I cannot spare you now; I cannot, indeed. You must defer it until to-morrow. I will not stay by myself now it is getting dusk. I am as nervous as I can be this evening. You are not half so attentive as Mrs. Freeman was: you are always away, or wanting to be."

Mrs. Penn came slowly up the stairs again, untying her bonnet-strings. But I saw she had a great mind to rebel, and depart on her errand in defiance of her mistress.

What could it be that she was so anxious for? what was she going to do? As she had passed to the stairs before being called back, the words "Down now with the Chandoses!" had reached my ears from her lips, softly spoken. I felt sick and frightened. What mischief might I not have caused by my incautious revelation? Oh! it seemed as though I had been treacherous to Chandos.

Restless and uncomfortable, I was going into the oak-parlour a little later, when Lizzy Dene, in a smart new bonnet and plaid shawl, a small basket on her arm, came into the hall to say something to Hickens, who was there.

"I suppose I may go out at this door, now I\'m here?" said she, afterwards; and Hickens grunted out "Yes" as he withdrew. At that self-same moment Mrs. Penn came softly and swiftly down the stairs, and called to her. Neither of them saw me, just inside the parlour.

"You are going out, I see, Lizzy. Will you do a little errand for me?"

"If it won\'t take long," was the girl\'s free answer. "But I have got leave to go out to tea, and am an hour later than I thought to be."

"It will not take you a minute out of your way. You know where Mr. Edwin Barley lives--the new tenant. Go to his house with this note, and desire that it may be given to him: should he not be at home, say that it must be handed to him the instant he comes in. If you do this promptly, and keep it to yourself, mind!--I will give you a crown piece!"

"I\'ll do it, and say \'thank ye,\' too, ma\'am," laughed Lizzy, in glee.

She opened the lid of her basket, popped in the note, and went out at the hall-door. Mrs. Penn disappeared upstairs.

But Lizzy Dene had halted in the portico, and had her face turned towards the skies.

"Now, is it going to rain?--or is it only the dark of the evening?" she deliberated aloud. "Better take an umbrella. I should not like my new shawl to be spoilt; and they didn\'t warrant the blue in it, if it got a soaking."

She put down the basket, and ran back to the kitchen. Now was my opportunity. I stole to the basket, lifted the lid, and took out the letter, trusting to good luck, and to Lizzy\'s not looking into the basket on her return.

She did not. She came back with the umbrella, snatched up the basket by its two handles, and went down the broad walk, at a run.

With the letter grasped in my hand, I was hastening to my own room to read it in peace--

"Read it!" interposes the reader, aghast at the dishonour. "Read it?"

Yes; read it. I believed that that letter was full of treachery to Chandos, and that I had unwittingly contributed to raise it, through my incautious revelation. Surely it was my duty now to do what I could to avert it, even though it involved the opening of Mrs. Penn\'s letter. A sudden light of suspicion seemed to have opened upon her--whispering a doubt that she was treacherous.

But in the hall I met the dinner coming in, and Mr. Chandos with it. Putting the note inside my dress, I sat down to table.

It was a silent dinner, save for the most ordinary courtesies; Mr. Chandos was grave, preoccupied, and sorrowful; I was as grave and preoccupied as he. When the servants left, he drew a dish of walnuts towards him, peeled some, and passed them to me; then he began to peel for himself. It was upon my tongue to say No; not to accept them from him: but somehow words failed.

"Anne, I have not understood you these last few days."

The address took me by surprise, for there had been a long silence. He did not raise his eyes to mine as he spoke, but kept them on the ............