The bailiffs on that day had their meals regular — and their beer, which state of things, together with an absence of all duty in the way of making inventories and the like, I take to be the earthly paradise of bailiffs; and on the next morning they walked off with civil speeches and many apologies as to their intrusion. ‘They was very sorry,’ they said, ‘to have troubled a gen’leman as were a gen’leman, but in their way of business what could they do?’ To which one of them added a remark that, ‘business is business.’ This statement I am not prepared to contradict, but I would recommend all men in choosing a profession to avoid any that may require an apology at every turn; either an apology or else a somewhat violent assertion of right. Each younger male reader may, perhaps, reply that he has no thought of becoming a sheriff’s officer; but then are there not other cognate lines of life to which, perhaps, the attention of some such may be attracted? On the evening of the day on which they went Mark received a note from Lady Lufton begging him to call early on the following morning, and immediately after breakfast he went across to Framley Court. It may be imagined that he was not in a very happy frame of mind, but he felt the truth of his wife’s remark that the first plunge into cold water was always the worst. Lady Lufton was not a woman who would continually throw his disgrace into his teeth, however terribly cold might be the first words with which she spoke of it. He strove hard as he entered her room to carry his usual look and bearing, and to put out his hand to greet her with his customary freedom, but he knew that he failed. And it may be said that no good man who has broken down in this goodness can carry the disgrace of his fall without some look of shame. When a man is able to do that, he ceases to be in any way good.

‘This has been a distressing affair,’ said Lady Lufton, after her first salutation.

‘Yes, indeed,’ said he. ‘It has been very sad for poor Fanny.’

‘Well; we must all have our little periods of grief; and it may perhaps be fortunate if none of us have worse than this. She will not complain herself, I am sure.’

‘She complain!’

‘No, I am sure she will not. And now all I’ve got to say, Mr Robarts is this: I hope you and Lufton have had enough to do with black sheep to last you your lives; for I must protest that your late friend Mr Sowerby is a black sheep.’ In no possible way could Lady Lufton have alluded to the matter with greater kindness than thus joining Mark’s name with that of her son. It took away all the bitterness of the rebuke, and made the subject one on which even he might have spoken without difficulty. But now, seeing that she was so gentle to him, he could not but lean the more hardly on himself.

‘I have been very foolish,’ said he, ‘very foolish, and very wrong, and very wicked.’

‘Very foolish, I believe, Mr Robarts — to speak frankly and once for all; but, as I also believe, nothing worse. I thought it best for both of us that we should have just one word about it, and now I recommend that the matter be never mentioned between us again.’

‘God bless you, Lady Lufton,’ he said, ‘I think no man ever had such a friend as you are.’ She had been very quiet during the interview, and almost subdued, not speaking with the animation that was usual to her; for this affair with Mr Robarts was not the only one she had to complete that day, nor, perhaps, the one most difficult of completion. But she cheered up a little under the praise now bestowed on her, for it was the sort of praise she loved best. She did hope, and perhaps flatter herself, that she was a good friend.

‘You must be good enough, then, to gratify my friendship by coming to dinner this evening; and Fanny, too, of course. I cannot take any excuses, for the matter is completely arranged; I have a particular reason for wishing it.’ These last violent injunctions had been added because Lady Lufton had seen a refusal rising in the parson’s face. Poor Lady Lufton! Her enemies — for even she had enemies — used to declare of her, that an invitation to dinner was the only method of showing itself of which her good-humour was cognizant. But let me ask of her enemies whether it is not as good a method as any other known to be extant? Under such orders as these obedience was of course a necessity, and he promised that he, with his wife, would come across to dinner. And then, when he went away, Lady Lufton ordered her carriage.

During these doings at Framley, Lucy Robarts still remained at Hogglestock, nursing Mrs Crawley. Nothing occurred to take her back to Framley, for the same note from Fanny which gave her the first tidings of the arrival of the Philistines told her also of their departure — and also of the source whence relief had reached them. ‘Don’t come, therefore, for that reason,’ said the note, ‘but, nevertheless, do come as quickly as you can, for the whole house is sad without you.’

On the morning after the receipt of this note Lucy was sitting, as was now usual with her, beside an old arm-chair to which her patient had been lately promoted. The fever had gone, and Mrs Crawley was slowly regaining her strength — very slowly, and with frequent caution from the Silverbridge doctor that any attempt at being well too fast might again precipitate her into an abyss of illness and domestic inefficiency.

‘I really think I can get about tomorrow,’ said she; ‘and then, dear Lucy, I need not keep you longer from your home.’

‘You are in a great hurry to get rid of me, I think. I suppose Mr Crawley has been complaining about the cream in his tea.’

Mr Crawley had on one occasion stated his assured conviction that surreptitious daily supplies were being brought to the house, because he had detected the presence of cream instead of milk in his own cup. As, however, the cream had been going for sundry days before this, Miss Robarts had not thought much of his ingenuity in making the discovery.

‘Ah, you do not know how he speaks of you when your back is turned.’

‘And how does he speak of me? I know you would not have the courage to tell me the whole.’

‘No, I have not; for you would think it absurd coming from one who looks like him. He says that if he were to write a poem about womanhood, he would make you the heroine.’

‘With a cream-jug in my hand, or else sewing buttons on to a shirt-collar. But he never forgave me about the mutton-broth. He told me, in so many words, that I was a — story-teller. And for the matter of that, my dear, so I was.’

‘He told me you were an angel.’

‘Goodness gracious!’

‘A ministering angel. And so you have been. I can almost feel it in my heart to be glad that I have been ill, seeing that I have had you for my friend.’

‘But you might have had that good fortune without the fever.’

‘No, I should not. In my married life I have made no friends till my illness brought you to me; nor should I ever really known you but for that. How should I get to know any one?’

‘You will now, Mrs Crawley; will you not? Promise that you will. You will come to us at Framley when you are well? You have promised already, you know.’

‘You made me do so when I was too weak to refuse.’

‘And I shall make you keep your promise, too. He shall come also, if he likes; but you shall come whether he likes or no, and I won’t hear a word about your old dresses. Old dresses will wear as well at Framley as at Hogglestock.’ From all which it will appear that Mrs Crawley and Lucy Robarts had become very intimate during the period of the nursing; as two women always will, or, at least, should do, when shut up for weeks together in the same sick room.

The conversation was still going on between them when the sound of wheels was heard upon the road. It was no highway that passed before the house, and carriages of any sort were not frequent there.

‘It is Fanny, I am sure,’ said Lucy, rising from her chair.

‘There are two horses,’ said Mrs Crawley, distinguishing the noise with the accurate sense of hearing which is always attached to sickness; ‘and it is not the noise of the pony-carriage.’

‘It is a regular carriage,’ said Lucy, speaking from the window, ‘and stopping here. It is somebody from Framley Court, for I know the servant.’ And as she spoke a blush came to her forehead. Might it not be Lord Lufton, she thought to herself — forgetting, at the moment, that Lord Lufton did not go about the country in a close chariot with a fat footman. Intimate as she had become with Mrs Crawley she had said nothing to her new friend on the subject of her love affair. The carriage stopped, and down came the footman, but nobody spoke to him from the inside.

‘He has probably brought something from Framley,’ said Lucy, having cream and such-like matters in her mind; for cream and such-like matters had come from Framley Court more than once during her sojourn there. ‘And the carriage, probably, happened to be coming this way.’ But the mystery soon elucidated itself partially, or, perhaps, became more mysterious in another way. The red-armed little girl who had been taken away by her frightened mother in the first burst of fever had now returned to her place, and at the present moment entered the room, with awe-struck face, declaring that Miss Robarts was to go at once to the big lady in the carriage.

‘I suppose it’s Lady Lufton,’ said Mrs Crawley. Lucy’s heart was so absolutely in her mouth that any kind of speech was at the moment impossible to her. Why should Lady Lufton have come hither to Hogglestock, and why should she want to see her, Lucy Robarts, in the carriage? Had not everything between them been settled? And yet —! Lucy, in the moment for thought that was allowed to her, could not determine what might be the probable upshot of such an interview. Her chief feeling was a desire to postpone it for the present instant. But the red-armed little girl would not allow that.

‘You are to come at once,’ said she.

And then Lucy, without having spoken a word, got up and left the room. She walked downstairs, along the little passage, and out through the small garden, with firm steps, but hardly knowing whither she went or why. Her presence of mind and self-possession had all deserted her. She knew that she was unable to speak as she should do; she felt that she would have to regret her present behaviour, but yet she could not help herself. Why should Lady Lufton have come to her here? She went on, and the big footman stood with the carriage door open. She stepped up almost unconsciously, and, without knowing how she got there, she found herself seated by Lady Lufton. To tell the truth her ladyship also was a little at a loss to know how she was to carry through her present plan of operations. The duty of beginning, however, was clearly with her, and therefore, having taken Lucy by the hand, she spoke. ‘Miss Robarts,’ she said, ‘my son has come home. I don’t know whether you are aware of it.’ She spoke with a low gentle voice, not quite like herself, but Lucy was much too confused to notice this.

‘I was not aware of it,’ said Lucy. She had, however, been so informed in Fanny’s letter, but all that had gone out of her head.

‘Yes; he has come back. He has been in Norway, you know — fishing.’

‘Yes,’ said Lucy.

‘I am sure you will remember all that took place when you came to me, not long ago, in my little room upstairs at Framley Court.’ In answer to which, Lucy, quivering in every nerve, and wrongly thinking that she was visibly shaking in every limb, timidly answered that she did remember. Why was it that she had then been so bold, and now was so poor a coward?

‘Well, my dear, all that I said to you then I said to you thinking that it was for the best. You, at any rate, will not be angry with me for loving my son better than I love any one else.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Lucy.

‘He is the best of sons, and the best of men, and I am sure that he will be the best of husbands.’

Lucy had an idea, by instinct, however, rather than by sight, that Lady Lufton’s eyes were full of tears as she spoke. As for herself she was altogether blinded, and did not dare lift her face or to turn her head. As for the utterances of any sound, that was quite out of the question. ‘And now, I have come here, Lucy, to ask you to be his wife.’

She was quite sure that she heard the words. They came plainly to her ears, leaving on her brain their proper sense, but yet she could not move or make any sign that she had understood them. It seemed as though it would be ungenerous in her to take advantage of such conduct and to accept an offer made with so much self-sacrifice. She had not time at the first moment to think even of his happiness, let alone her own, but she thought only of the magnitude of the concession which had been made to her. When she had constituted Lady Lufton as the arbiter of her destiny she had regarded the question of her love as decided against herself.

She had found herself unable to endure the position of being Lady Lufton’s daughter-inlaw while Lady Lufton would be scorning her, and therefore she had given up the game. She had given up the game, sacrificing herself, and, as far as it might be a sacrifice, sacrificing him also. She had been resolute to stand to her word in this respect, but she had never allowed herself to think it possible that Lady Lufton should comply with the conditions which she, Lucy, had laid upon her. And yet such was the case, as she so plainly heard. ‘And now I have come here, Lucy, to ask you to be his wife.&r............