“Oh, my dear,” said Letitia, “I know all about hearts breaking. It never stops you from having your own way. What is the use of saying you would rather die? Would you rather die with all the good things in life before you? Nonsense, Mary! Don’t talk to me as if I didn’t know all about it. Now you’ll be petted and feted and made as if there never was the like before. You and your baby—while my poor Duke, my Duke, that was the real, rightful heir——”

Mrs. John burst forth in sobs and tears, and the room grew darker and darker. Mary, huddled up in a corner of the sofa, heard and saw no more.

CHAPTER XXI.

It was a dreadful night at the Park. The old lord wandered up and down like an unquiet spirit unable to rest. Rogers, who was more shocked than words could say by an exhibition of feeling which went against all the laws of health, endeavored in vain to get him to go to bed. “For you can do no good, my lord—none of us can do any good. Things will take their course, and the medical man is here. My lady would be most distressed of all if she knew that you were losing your night’s sleep which is the most important thing, more important even than food. I do entreat your lordship to go to bed. I’ll sit up and bring the first news—the very first, if you’ll go to bed, my lord.”

“It is easy speaking,” said Lord Frogmore—“you’re a good fellow, Rogers. Go to bed yourself. It’s my turn to sit up to-night.”

“But it don’t affect me—and it will affect your lordship—and what will my lady say to me when she knows?”

“Oh don’t speak to me,” cried the old lord with the water in his eyes. “I’ll give you a sovereign for every word she says to you, when she’s able to take any notice, Rogers, either of you or me.”

“That’ll be to-morrow, my lord,” said the man, “and I know her ladyship will never put faith in me again. But at least you’ll take your beef tea.”

Lord Frogmore pushed him away, and bade him take the beef-tea himself and coddle himself up as he had done his master so long. As for himself, he kept trotting up and downstairs all the night. It was far too late at sixty-nine, after taking such care of himself, to begin this life of emotion and anxiety; and the morning light, when it stole in through all the closed shutters, flouting the candles, and poured down the great staircase, making the lamp in the hall look so foolish, made sad game of the old lord’s rosy face, generally so fresh and smooth. But, happily, ease came with the morning, and the best of news: a boy—and all very quiet, and every prospect that everything would go well. Lord Frogmore was allowed to peep at the top of a small head done up in flannel, and at the mother’s pale face on the pillow, and then he resigned himself to Rogers to be put to bed. But he was now so overflowing with delight that he chattered like an old woman to his faithful servant. “Rogers,” he said, “you’ve heard it’s a boy?”

“Yes, my lord, and I wish you every happiness in him,” Rogers said.

“I am afraid my wife will be disappointed,” said Lord Frogmore, “she’s so fond of my little nephew, little Duke. She would rather it had been a girl for that. Poor little Duke! Now he’s quite out of it, the little shaver.” And Lord Frogmore laughed. He was sorry for Duke, or at least would have been had there been room in him for anything but joy. “Did I ever tell you, Rogers, what that little fellow said the first time I went to Greenpark, eh? He said, ‘When you’re dead papa will be Lord Frogmore, and when papa’s dead, me.’ Poor little shaver! He was too cocksure,” said Lord Frogmore again with a triumphant laugh.

“It’ll make a deal of difference to him, my lord.”

“Yes, it’ll make a deal of difference. But they couldn’t expect me to consider them before myself,” said Lord Frogmore. “A man likes to have an heir of his own, Rogers—a son of his own to come after him.”

“Yes, he do, my lord,” Rogers said.

“A man loves to have an heir of his own,” repeated the old lord with a beaming face—“his own flesh and blood—his own son to sit in his place. That’s what a man prefers before everything, Rogers.”

“He do, my lord,” Rogers once more replied.

“You put up with it when you can’t help it; but a son of your own to come after you, Rogers!”

“Yes, my lord—if you’ll drink this while it is hot, and get into bed.”

“You’re a sad martinet, Rogers. I don’t believe you mind a bit, or care, whether it was a girl or a boy. I’ll have no beef tea. I’ll have some champagne to drink to the heir.”

“Oh, my lord, my lord! You’ll have one of your attacks: and then what will her ladyship say to me?” said the much-troubled Rogers, to whom his old master was generally so obedient.

It was enough to drive a man who had the responsibility, whom everybody looked to, out of his mind. At last, however, the old lord was got to bed, and after his exhausting night had a long and sound sleep.

But before Lord Frogmore awoke agitating rumors had already begun to run through the house. Nobody quite knew what it was; but it began to be rumored that her ladyship was not doing so well as was expected, that she was in a bad way. Whether it was fever or what it was nobody would tell. A consciousness of such a fact will breathe through a house or even a country without either details or certainty. The doctor’s face, as he came downstairs, his lingering after it was clear he was no longer wanted, an exclamation, surprised from the lips of one of the ladies or even a gravity in the aspect of the nurse, to whom a curious housemaid had handed in something that was wanted, each supported and strengthened the other. Not so well as might be expected. When Lord Frogmore awoke it was afternoon, for he had slept long in the satisfaction of his soul and the calming of his fears, and he saw a revelation in the face of Rogers when questioned how my lady was. Rogers lied with his lips, or at least he brought forth with a little difficulty the usual words; but Lord Frogmore could not be deceived by his face. The old gentleman rose with a sudden chill at his heart and dressed hurriedly and hastened to his wife’s room, where he could see they were reluctant to admit him. Mary was lying with a clouded countenance, not like herself, not asleep as they said at first, but muttering to herself, and the faces of her sister and the nurse who were watching by her were very anxious. “She wants something. What is it she wants?” said the old lord, anxiously. The experienced nurse shook her head with an ominous gravity, and begged that the poor lady might not be disturbed. “They are like that, sometimes,” she said, “till they get a good sleep.”

“But what is it? What is it she wants? Get her what she wants,” said Lord Frogmore, going to the side of the bed. Mary saw him, for she moved a little and raised her voice. “It is a girl—it is a girl—say it is a girl. Say—say it is a girl!” She looked at him with a piteous appeal that broke his heart. Ah no, she did not know him. She appealed to him as a sane man, as one who could satisfy her. “It is a girl—you know—you know it is a girl!” she cried.

The heart of the poor old lord swelled to bursting. This was all as new to him as if he had been a boy-husband, disturbed, yet so joyful and proud. “No, Mary,” he said; “no, my dear. It’s a beautiful boy. The thing I desired most in the world was this heir.”

Mary gave a shriek that rang through all the house. She got up in her bed, her face convulsed with horror and terror. “No, no,” she cried; “no, no, no. The heir—not the heir—not the heir. Oh, take it away. Didn’t you hear what she said: It will grow up an idiot and kill us. Take it away—take it away.”

“Mary!” cried the old lord, taking her hand, “Mary! This is that wretched woman’s doing that has frightened her. Mary, my love, it is your own child; a beautiful child. Our son, the boy I wanted, Mary.”

Mary snatched her hand from his. She shrank away from him to the other edge of the bed. “No, not a boy—no, no, no!—no heir!—there is an heir,” she cried, clutching at the woman who stood on the other side, as if escaping from a danger. “He doesn’t know—he doesn’t know,” she cried, flinging herself upon the nurse. “It will grow up an idiot and kill me. Do you hear? Do you hear? Say it’s not so—oh, say it’s not so!”

“No, no, my poor dear lady, no, no! It’s as you wish, it’ll be all you wish,” said the nurse holding the patient in her arms. And Mary clung to the woman holding her fast, whispering in her ear. Lord Frogmore stood with piteous eyes and saw his wife shrinking from him, talking to the woman, who bent over her, with the dreadful whisper of insanity, which meant nothing. Was this what it had come to—all the pride and triumph and joy? The old lord stood with his limbs trembling under him, his old heart sore with disappointment and cold with terror. His mild Mary! What had changed her in a moment in the illusion of happiness to this frenzied sufferer? When he saw that she kept hiding her head in the nurse’s breast, clinging to her, he withdrew sorrowful and subdued to where Agnes sat by the fire with the little bundle of flannel on her lap. She was crying quietly under her breath, and looked up at him as he came towards her with sympathetic trouble. “They say,” she whispered, “that it’s often so just at first when they want sleep. Oh, don’t lose heart!”

“It’s that accursed woman,” he said, under his breath.

“Oh I hope not—I hope it’s only—she will be better when she has slept. Look at him, poor little darling,” said Agnes unfolding the shawls. Lord Frogmore cast a troubled glance at the poor little heir who seemed about to cost him so dear. He had no heart to look at the child. He crept out of the room afterwards feeling all his years and his unfitness, a man near seventy, for the cares and responsibilities of a father. A father for the first time in his seventieth year. And Mary, Mary! So soon was triumph changed to terror and woe.

The doctor gave him a little comfort when he came. He said that such cases were not very rare. So great a shock and ordeal to go through acted on delicate nerves and organization with a force they were unable to withstand, and sometimes the mind was pushed off its balance. There would be nothing to be alarmed about if this state should continue for a week or two or even more. It was not very uncommon. The doctor had various instances on his tongue as glib as if they had been a list of patronesses at a ball. Nothing to be afraid of! It would pass away he declared and leave no sign. As for the interview with Mrs. John, he did not think that had anything to do with it; there was quite enough to account for it without that. He thought it best that Lord Frogmore should keep out of the way, not to distress himself with so melancholy a sight. Yes, it was distressing and melancholy: but soon it would pass over, and be like a dream. The old lord was comforted by this consolatory opinion, for the first hour very much so, hoping, as he was told to hope, that in a few days all that alarmed him might be over, and his wife restored to him. But he was less confident at night, and still less confident next day. Indeed he wanted constant assurance that everything would soon be well. He flagged almost immediately after the new hope had been formed with him, as every day he stole into his wife’s room, and every day came downstairs again with the horrible conviction that there was no improvement. Poor Mary! her very face seemed changed; it was haggard and drawn, and her eyes so wistful and so watchful, shone upon him like stars, not of hope but of misery. Oh, the terror in them, and the watchfulness! For some days she was afraid of him, and turned to the nurse from him, as if to hide herself from his look. But by-and-bye she became quiet, supporting his presence, but keeping always a watchful eye upon him; supporting him and enduring his presence. Oh, what a thing to say of Mary, his gentle wife, his happy companion. The heart of the old lord sank lower and lower as those dreadful days went by.

CHAPTER XXII.

To describe the state of the Park under the effect of this event would be very difficult. It changed altogether in the most curious way. Indeed Lord Frogmore’s country seat had gone through several transformations of late. Nothing could have been more composed, more orderly and perfect than it had been under the sway of Mr. Rogers and Mr. Upjames, the respectable valet and butler who had organized the life of the bachelor lord into an elegant comfort and tranquillity which was beyond praise. Everything had gone upon velvet in those halcyon days; not a sound had even been heard to disturb the calm, save the sound of conversation among the well-chosen visitors or of a cheerful fire burning, a thing which could not be reduced to absolute subjection. There had never been any hitch in the arrangements; not even a crumpled rose-leaf on a couch. The servants moved about like polite ghosts, noiselessly warding off every annoyance. It had been a model of a luxurious house. Then there had come a strange modification when the bride was brought home, and the entire dwelling had recognized her presence with mingled distrust and affection and pride. The flutter of women’s dresses about the place and women’s voices had been at first difficult for the old servants to bear, who had always hitherto kept the women strictly in their proper places, there being no housekeeper—for Mr. Upjames was more than equal to that office—and only a meek cook to make any division of authority. Rogers and Upjames had, however, on the whole taken kindly to Lady Frogmore, who did not attempt to make any fundamental changes, and who always was exceedingly civil, and not jealous of their authority; and they were elated to think that their old lord at sixty-eight was equal to taking upon him all the responsibilities of life as if he had been thirty. The mild time of Mary’s reign had therefore only added a little brightness, a little ornament, a gentle gaiety to the well-ordered house. Rogers himself had grown younger, and Mr. Upjames added a grace to his perfect manner. The butler had been heard to acknowledge before that he did not feel equal to tackling the ladies, but he made no such acknowledgment now. Lady Frogmore reconciled them to the feminine sex, and the Park gained a certain consequence and liberality and light. It was not so completely centred in the task of making exquisite the comfort of its own master. It began to have thoughts of other people and other things.

But now! The house became at a touch the saddest house. All the great sitting-rooms lay empty, like a sort of vestibule to the rooms upstairs in which trouble and sorrow dwelt. Lord Frogmore came and went with a troubled face. His marriage had not changed his habits much. He had taken all the old precautions to keep in perfect health. His beef-tea and his baths, and the certain amount of walking which he preferred any day, and every one of his sanitary regulations, had been fully observed as before. But now he cared nothing for any of these things. He walked about all day, going out in the morning after breakfast, and wandering aimlessly about, instead of his habitual brisk constitutional. But when he came in, instead of going to the library to write his letters or read his papers, all that he did was to walk upstairs to the door of his wife’s room to see if there was any change. He came in always with a little hope for the first few weeks, confidently expecting each time he asked the question to hear that she was better. But after that his countenance changed. He became very grave, scarcely smiling, seldom speaking to any one. Every time he came in he went upstairs with the same question; but there was something spiritless in his look, in his step, in his aspect generally, which made you feel that he had given up expecting a good reply. And when the poor little baby, who was the cause of all this trouble, was brought out to take the air and walked about in its nurse’s arms up and down the avenue, the old lord would walk up and down too, accompanying the group with a look of such melancholy in his face as was like to break the spectator’s heart. The baby it was allowed on all hands was very delicate. The flannel shawls, so soft and white and fine, were scarcely opened a little from its tiny face to let in the sunny atmosphere, and with never a smile on his thin old face, the father would walk beside it up and down, up and down. Poor little thing! and poor old gentleman! they were at the opposite extremities of human feebleness, and the fully counted life which should have linked them together was not theirs. Lord Frogmore did not look much at his little boy. He was afraid of the child lest something should happen to it. It was to him rather a part of the substantial nurse who carried it, and in whose powerful arms it was safer than anything belonging to him. And yet he walked by its side with his brisk step subdued, his head cast down, a melancholy languor about him. The starch seemed to have gone out of his collar, his cheek so rosy and firm had grown limp. To see him turning up and down, up and down by the side of that infant was enough to break anyone’s heart.

Meanwhile to poor Mary there came but little change. She did not recover as the doctor had promised. She had nothing that could be called a recovery at all. She kept her bed because apparently she had no desire to get up. And sometimes she would hold long conversations about baby clothes and the like with the nurse, rationally enough, as if her mind was able to occupy itself with ordinary duties. Sometimes even she would allow the baby to be brought to her, and cry over it. “Poor little thing!” she would say, “if that is to be its fate; oh, it is not the little thing’s fault. I might be to blame, but it couldn’t be to blame. Oh, poor little thing. I’ll not cry out if you kill me, poor baby. It will not be you, but dreadful, dreadful fate.”

“Oh, my lady, don’t talk like that. The child will grow up to be your comfort and joy.”

“Listen, then,” said Mary, “it’s only to you I will tell the secret,” and she would put her lips to the woman’s ear and whisper that eager, anxious, busy whisper that meant nothing. And when this secret communication was completed, Mary added in her ordinary voice, “So you see we cannot help it, neither he nor I. Oh to think he should have been born only for this, and to put everything wrong. Take it away, take it away,” she would cry suddenly, her voice rising to a scream, thrusting the poor child into the nurse’s arms. And then she would draw the nurse to her and whisper again, “Tell him, tell him,” she said: but the whisper was never intelligible, and the look which the poor old lord gave her made the unfortunate nurse lose her head altogether. “Oh, my lord!” the woman said, and Mary nodded her head with satisfaction as if everything was being explained. Lord Frogmore would turn away more wretched than ever, unable to elicit a word or hardly a look which reminded him of her former self, and went downstairs to pace up and down the library, up and down, paying no attention to anything. Never was there a more sad house. Agnes, who remained with her sister, though Mary took no notice of her, would steal down after those dreadful interviews to comfort the poor old gentleman. “She will not speak to me at all,” said Agnes, weeping. “She thinks I am a stranger. I don’t think she knows me.”

“What is she always whispering?” said the old lord. “There must be something in that. The nurse ought to make out what it is. Perhaps she wants something. Perhaps we might find some way to work if we could but know what that whisper was? I don’t think you should stand upon a point of honor, but try—try to understand what she says.”

“Oh, dear Lord Frogmore,” cried Agnes with tears in her eyes. “It is nothing. I don’t think she says words at all.”

Lord Frogmore in his trouble ignored this speech. “You should not be punctilious,” he said, walking about the long room with short agitated steps. “It may be a matter of life and death. You should not stand upon a point of honor. You should make every effort to understand what your dear sister says.”

And it was by a sort of pitiful understanding between them that Agnes said no more. He knew as well as she did that poor Mary’s whispered communications were unintelligible—but he would not allow it to be said. He preferred to blame someone for an exaggerated point of honor in not listening, not understanding. Such voluntary miscomprehensions are among the most piteous subterfuges of despair.

It cannot be supposed that Mary’s condition and the sad change in the house could be long ignored by Letitia, whose very faculty was on the alert to know what, if anything, had followed her last dreadful attempt against the unfortunate mother of the heir. Letitia was as yet inexperienced in what may be called crime. She had never, as has been said, knowingly assailed the life or reason of a fellow creature before—and she had not had any certainty that her attempt would be successful. It was not exactly like a knife or a revolver. Letitia was very well aware that such operations as she had carried out upon Mary would not in the least have affected herself—and, therefore, she felt herself justified in ignoring the possibility of serious harm. But when the news was brought to her, whispered with bated breath, that Lady Frogmore’s mind was affected, indeed, that she was mad which was the succinct way of stating the matter, Letitia was so much startled and horrified that she cried—which did her great good with her husband. John had been uneasy at the vehemence of his wife’s hatred of Mary in her new exaltation, and when he saw her suddenly burst into most real tears, his good heart was touched and he felt that he had been doing her injustice. He got up from his seat in his compunction and went to his wife and caressed and soothed her. “You must go over and inquire, Letitia,” he said. And once more Letitia was so moved by genuine horror, that, anxious though she was to know everything, she held back from doing this.

“Oh, John,” she said, “I did perhaps say something that was too strong when I knew what her schemings had come to. They might not like me to go.”

“I have always told you, Letitia, I did not think there was any scheming about it. But anyhow Frogmore would be pleased—he would see that we bear no malice. Of course, I felt it at the first just as you did,” said the unconscious John.

“The child,” said Letitia, “is very delicate, too.” She could not help stealing a glance at John under her eyelids to see whether he would respond.

“Poor people!” said John, “or rather poor old Frogmore, to put off so long and then have such a sad time of it. I’m very sorry for the poor old fellow.”

“He had no right to do anything of the kind,” Letitia cried.

“Well, it was hard upon us,” said John with a sigh: “but I’ve made up my mind to it now. You had better go over to-morrow and ask how she is.”

Letitia was very eager to go to see with her own eyes what was the condition of affairs, but yet it was not without difficulty that she persuaded herself to return to the house where her last visit had been so disastrous. It was now September, and the days were beginning to get short, but this time she took no bag, nor had she the least intention of staying over the night. An hour would be enough, she thought, to hear all she wanted and see what she could. But her sense of guilt would not be subdued as she approached the house and remembered how she had fled away from it six weeks before, having done all the harm that it was possible to do. She had no intention now of doing any harm; oh, no, no! only to inquire and if practicable see for herself what prospect of sanity there was for Mary or life for her boy. When she met in her progress up the avenue in the fly she had hired at the station the little pathetic group above described, the nurse carrying the infant and Lord Frogmore marching melancholy at its side, she hurriedly stopped and sprang out, feeling that Lord Frogmore was likely to be more easily dealt with than Agnes, whose feminine instincts would divine her object. But Letitia did not find that a very gracious reception awaited her. Lord Frogmore looked out with a little irritation as the cab drew up. He evidently thought a visitor an impertinence. When he was compelled by his sister-in-law’s eager and excessively affectionate accost to stop in his walk and speak to her, a gleam of angry light came into his eyes. “Oh, it is you, Mrs. John!” he said.

“Oh, Frogmore,” cried the lady, “how is Mary? I could not rest when I heard how ill she was till I had come over to see for myself.”

“I do not know,” said Lord Frogmore stiffly, “how ill you may have heard she was: but I don’t wonder that you should wish to see for yourself.”

“No: can you wonder? We have been like sisters almost all our lives.”

Though Letitia quaked at the old lord’s tone, she felt that it was the wisest way to ignore all offence.

“Sisters, if all tales are true, are not always the best of friends,” said Lord Frogmore. “Familiarity interferes with the natural bounds of good breeding. I think, Mrs. John, that I must ask you not to go any further, or at least not to insist on seeing Lady Frogmore.”

“Is she so very bad?” said Letitia in a thrilling whisper.

“No,” he said with irritation. “I did not say she was very bad. I said I could not admit visitors who, perhaps, might forget what is due to a delicate and sensitive woman.”

“I did not know,” said Letitia with an injured air, “that I was so little worthy of confidence. I am very sorry that Mary is so ill; so is John. We both felt we could not rest without knowing personally how much or how little of what we hear is true.”

“And what do you hear?” Lord Frogmore, though he felt it his duty to defend his wife, was not willingly ungracious, and felt it of all things in the world the most difficult to shut his door in anyone’s face. His courage failed him when Letitia put forth so reasonable a plea—

“Oh, Frogmore,” said Mrs. John, “what is the use of questioning and cross-questioning? Tell me how dear Mary is; that is all I want to know.”

He was shaken in his resolution, but still tried to be stern. “What did you say to her,” he asked, “the last time you were here?”

“What did I say to her? Oh, a hundred things! and she to me. We talked of how wonderful it was, and how much may come from the smallest event; that if I had not one day met her in the Academy, and asked her to come and stay with me, you might never have met her, and all that has happened would never have been. That was the last thing we talked of. Is it supposed it did any harm, that talk between Mary and me? Oh, Lord Frogmore, people must be malignant indeed if they can find any harm in that.”

“I don’t know that there was any harm in it. It depends upon how a thing is said, whether there is harm in it or not.”

“I know,” said Letitia, “that I have enemies in this house. I know Mrs. Hill and Agnes. Oh, Agnes is spiteful! She never wishes to see Mary with me. She thinks I put her against them; as if I would ever interfere between a woman and her own family. But, Frogmore, you know what women are. They are jealous; they are spiteful; they never lose an opportunity to whisper against one that has done better than themselves. I know very well what it is that turns you against me. It is Agnes Hill that has put things into your head.”

“No,” he said, but doubtfully feeling that to think so badly of his brother’s wife was very inconvenient, and that perhaps after all it was Agnes who had put it into his head: she had not said much, but it might be she who had suggested it, for it was according to all the tenets with which he was acquainted that a woman should be spiteful, as Letitia said. He hesitated a great deal as to what he should do; whether he should hold by his first resolution to allow Letitia to come no further; or whether it might perhaps be an awakening thing for Mary to see her. Letitia followed him with soft and noiseless steps while he pursued this thought, and then she said suddenly, as if she could contain herself no longer, “Surely, at least, there can be no reason why I should not see the dear child.”

She took the baby out of the nurse’s arms as she spoke, and deftly, with practised hands, folded down the coverings in which it was wrapped. The mother of five children knew how to handle with ease and mastery, which made the old lord wonder and tremble, the little fragile new-born baby, which to him was an object so wonderful.

“If I were you,” said Letitia to the nurse, “I would not have the child covered up so. The air will do him nothing but good. Throw off all your shawls, and let him breathe the good air. I am sure his mother would say so if she were here.”

Letitia, at least in that action, meant no harm to the child. She said it as she would have done to any ignorant cottager who half smothered her baby to keep it from cold. But while she held the infant in her arms, and put down her cheek upon its little dark, downy head, an impulse that was horrible came over her. Oh, the little interloper!—the child so undesired, so unnecessary—who had taken her children’s inheritance from them! To think that a little pressure more than usual, a little more close folding of the shawls, and it would stand in Duke’s way no more. The thought made her strain towards her with a sudden throb of almost savage excitement the little helpless atom, who could never tell any tale.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Suddenly there were voices heard coming up the stairs, approaching the room, a faint little wail from the baby, a soothing hush-sh from the nurse who carried him. And then another voice—not loud, not ungentle, the voice of a woman trying to ingratiate herself with someone who accompanied her. Mary had started at the sound of the infant’s cry, but when she heard the other voice she rose up in her bed and put out a terrified hand on each side to her nurse and to Agnes. An anguished look of listening came into her face. She clutched their hands, drawing them in close to her, her eyes staring like those of a hunted creature straight before her, as if prepared to rise and flee. Then Letitia’s voice became audible again, “I will just go in. It will rouse her to see me.” Both the watchers heard these words distinctly, though they would have sworn that the wild shriek which ran through the house burst from Mary’s lips before they were half said. Mary flung herself first on one then on the other with cries that succeeded each other wildly, then she threw herself back into her bed, pulling the coverings over head. “Save me! save me!” she cried, “Oh, save me, save me!” The force of her hold was such that the women on either side were forced upon the bed, their heads meeting across her concealed and covered head, from which shrieks muffled but terrible still continued to come. “For God’s sake, don’t bring her in, don’t bring her in,” cried Agnes, almost as wildly. The group outside paused terrified; Letitia was livid with fear. She turned back hastily, as if the mad creature who feared her was at her heels, and without saying a word ran downstairs. She had courage enough on ordinary occasions, but to be within reach of a madwoman, which was the unmitigated phrase she used to herself, was not one of the dangers which she could face. She ran as fast as her legs would carry her down the long staircase. No plea for Mary did Mrs. Parke make. Through the ringing of those shrieks, which became more and more hoarse as the unfortunate patient wore herself out, all the bystanders heard the patter of quick little steps running downstairs. She darted out at the open door, and ran along the terrace outside, a self-condemned fugitive: or was she only a nervous woman, terrified, as some people are, of anything that sounds like insanity? The unhappy family heard in their imaginations Letitia’s steps running through everything all the dreadful hours that followed. But the fact was that she ran in her panic to where she had left her cab, never drawing her breath, and got into it and drove quickly away. For one thing she had found out all she wanted to know.

What followed on that dreadful day no one ever knew clearly. Poor Mary, out of her brooding and miserable madness, which yet everybody hoped might in time have dispersed, as the shock and horror that produced it died away from her brain, became for a time acutely, terribly mad, striving to hide herself from the light of day, haunted by a horror of her enemy, who was forever pursuing her, ready to clutch at her at the door. Her confused brain caught this one point of reality and never relinquished it. Letitia was always at the door to Mary’s terrified and distorted fancy. Her voice was always there, saying, “I will go in.” Every time the door opened there was a fresh access of the wildest terror, which lasted through days and nights, so dreadful to the watchers, that they could not tell how long it lasted or how often the long day ended in a night full of alarm and terror. Poor old Lord Frogmore—such a picture of an old gentleman; so active, so brisk, so well, doing everything that younger men could do—fell into pathetic ruin, lost his color, his strength, his spirits, and became an old man in that week of misery. The old vicar from Grocombe and his wife, who came hurrying to the Park, with the idea that the near relations should always be collected on such an emergency, added to the trouble by their unnecessary presence; for Mrs. Hill, who was not to be kept out of her daughter’s room, had to be removed from it periodically in a state of utter prostration, from which it required all the care of Agnes to restore her; and the vicar himself stood about in the hall or the library staring at everybody who went and came; asking in a hoarse whisper, “Is she any better?” and always in the way.

When this terrible state of affairs had lasted for a week, and everyone was worn out, the doctors—for they were now many, Lord Frogmore having summoned everyone who could be supposed to be of any help—requested an interview with him; and then announced their opinion that Lady Frogmore should be removed from home. Having thus to renounce the hopes he had still been cherishing against hope that her illness might still prove only temporary, the old lord struggled for some time against the dreadful necessity. He declared that he was ready to fill the house with attendants; to undergo any expense; to give up his house entirely to his wife and go away himself if they considered it necessary. But by and by calmer counsels prevailed. Mary’s family were more reasonable than her husband. They pointed out to him with much practical sense that he was risking his own health, destroying his own life, without any advantage to her, and that his life was more than ever valuable, for his child’s sake, and even for her sake, poor forlorn lady, who had no protector but he. It was hard for him in his weakened state to stand out against the doctors, against the dull persistency of the vicar, who besides could not be got rid of till poor Mary was removed, and against what was more than all, the dreadful sight of Mary convulsed with frenzy, or lying in her calm intervals like a dead thing, her mild face grown into a tragic mask of misery. On the whole it was better not to see that, to have the knowledge of it without having one’s heart rent every day by the dreadful, dreadful sight. Lord Frogmore at last consented to this miserable yet inevitable step, which he felt to be a public proclamation of the wretchedness which had so soon closed over the late and tranquil happiness of his old age. He went away for a few days with Rogers, as sad an old man as any under the stars, and gave himself up meekly into his faithful servant’s hands, to be brought back to life as far as was possible. “Yes,” he said, “Rogers, do what you can for me: for I have my little boy to look after, my poor little baby that ought to have been my grandchild, Rogers.”

“Don’t say so, my lord. Oh, don’t say so. He’ll grow up to be a comfort to you.”

The old lord shook his head with a melancholy smile. “He’s cost me dear, he’s cost me very dear, and he’s a delicate little mite with no stamina, an old man’s child. Poor little beggar that has cost his mother her reason! it would be the best thing for him, Rogers, to die comfortably and be buried with her when I go.”

“Oh, my lord! please God you’ll live to see him come of age, and my lady as bright as ever, and all well.”

Lord Frogmore gave a deep sigh, and then a little laugh, which was perhaps the saddest of the two. “Well,” he said, “let’s hope so, Rogers, since nobody can tell how it may be.”

He could not help wondering sometimes what he had done that this should have fallen upon him in his old age, or if he had done anything, or if God worked no miracles now save in sustaining and supporting the human spirit to bear, but let the laws of nature take their course. It was Mary’s nature, he felt, to be thus driven frantic by the thought of having wronged another for her own happiness, and in his sad musings he followed all the course of the story which he himself, without perhaps sufficient motive, had set in motion. He said to himself that perhaps after permitting John to believe himself to be the heir for so long, it was wrong on his part to have put himself in the position of supplanting John. He thought of his first visit to Greenpark, and wondered whether he had been so petty as to be nettled by little Duke’s baby swagger. He had been nettled by it. “When you are dead, papa, and when papa is dead, me——.” The child had cleared both John and himself out of his little path with such ease as if it did not matter! He had been vexed—he a man who ought to have known better—by what the child had said: and was it possible that a little prick of offence like this should have originated all that followed? And then he thought of Mary, his Mary, so patient and sweet, putting up with everything, and with the insolence of the servants, from which he had delivered her. No, no, he could not think he had been anything but right in interfering to save Mary, to raise her above all her tormentors. He had been certainly right to do that—certainly right! But had it been better for her that he did so? Would not even Letitia’s dependent, simply loving and serving Letitia’s children, humble enough and poor enough, but reaping the fruits of patience in a gentle life, which was all sacrifice—would not she have been happier like that without rising to triumph (which was out of accordance with her nature) for a time, to be plunged afterwards into such horrible depths. Poor Lord Frogmore, when he had sounded all these depths, was obliged at the end to come back, and to acknowledge that he knew nothing—nothing! Perhaps he had not even done all round what he hoped would be for the best, being moved by wrath against little Duke and pity for Mary beyond what was reasonable, and so having set all those dreadful agencies in motion which could not be balked, which must proceed to their natural end. He lost himself in the metaphysics of this question which was so difficult to fathom. For his brother John and his brother’s family had a perfect right to think themselves the heirs, and it was hard, very hard upon them to be displaced. And at the same time he himself had a perfect right to marry, and have an heir of his own. Who can decide such questions? and yet one way or another there must have been a harvest of trouble and pain.

When Lord Frogmore returned to the park, Mary was gone. She was gone and all trace of her, except the poor little delicate baby, the puny thing which had no stamina and which everybody thought would die. Poor little thing, people said, it would be a comfort if it was to die, for it never could have any health to make life pleasant, and madness in the mother’s family and the father so old, so that it was not possible he could live to see it grow up. Everybody allowed that it was a most pathetic thing to see the old lord walking in the avenue through all the winter mornings up and down, up and down in the sunshine, beside the bundle of white cashmere which contained this little weakly bud of humanity, the little thing who had not even the honors of his sex, but was called “it” by all who spoke of him. It was a very still little thing, rarely cried, but often when the veil was drawn aside from its face was seen to be gazing up at the heavens with two solemn brown eyes. Kind women cried when they saw this forlorn little creature, worse than motherless, looking up “to where it had come from,” some said—“to where it was going fast,” said the others. According as they were of hopeful dispositions or not people took these different views; but all thought it was a most pathetic thing to see old Lord Frogmore taking these silent walks along with his heir.

After a time, when it was seen that difficulties were apt to arise with the child’s attendants, some of whom were too kind to him, and some not kind enough, Agnes Hill left Grocombe and came to live at the Park. It was not concealed that she came chiefly to act as head nurse to the boy. But Agnes did not interfere with the father’s supervision of his child, nor with their walks, for if she were not so emotional or so interesting as her sister Mary, she was very sensible and capable of letting well alone, which is a thing that few persons can do in a masterly way, and women especially are often deficient in. And thus life went on for five or six years. Five or six years! A frightful time, if you will think of it, for a poor woman to be shut up in an asylum, and to know nothing of the fate of her nearest and dearest. To be sure she was visited periodically, and sometimes knew her friends, and would ask them questions which showed she remembered. But, however long the years may be they come only day by day, and this makes them so much more easy to get through—and human nature is the strangest thing, falling into any routine, adapting itself to all circumstances.

Life at the Park fell into this channel and went on quite peaceful, even not unhappily, strange as it may seem. Lord Frogmore recovered his health under the constant ministrations of Rogers. He had an excellent constitution: his cheeks got back their rosy hue and became firm and round again; his step recovered its elasticity. He was again pointed out to everybody as the most wonderful old gentleman of his age in the whole county. He still walked in the avenue daily with his little boy, who, though later than ordinary, learned to walk, and trotted by his old father’s side in a way which was not quite so pathetic, making the woods ring with a little voice, which, though it was perhaps not so loud as others little boys’ voices, was still full of “flichterin’ noise and glee.” The child was always with his Aunt Agnes when he was indoors, and therefore he acquired something of that undue development which falls to the share of those children brought up exclusively among elder people. Lord Frogmore kept up the habit which his wife and he had established at the beginning of their married life, of having Duke very often at the Park. Duke was now a big boy and at school, but he was exceedingly tenderly good to the baby, as boys sometimes are. Little Marmaduke preferred his namesake and cousin (whom he had supplanted) to any one in the world. It was the prettiest relationship—to see the big boy so tender to the small one did the heart good. Duke seemed to know that he had something to make up and was in some special manner appealed to by the delicacy of the little cousin, though indeed it was quite the opposite point of view that commended itself to most people. But Lord Frogmore had thought of that also. He had thought it his duty to provide specially for Duke, which was always something, though it did not by any means subdue the grudge in Letitia’s heart.

Thus, however, things went on in a subdued composure and calm of life that was not unhappy. It may be said that the thought of Mary, his wife whom he loved, was never long absent from Lord Frogmore’s mind, and gave him many a pang; but still every day, taking off a legitimate time for sleep, is at the least, let us say, fifteen or sixteen hours long, and there were many intervals in which he did not think of Mary, or at least not exclusively. And little Marmaduke (who was called Mar to distinguish from his cousin) became very amusing as he grew older, and his father doted upon him. In the evening before it was time to prepare for dinner, and especially in the winter evenings when Mar sat upon his stool before the fire, with the warm light reflected in his eyes, and chattered about everything, the old lord had many happy hours; as happy almost as if it had been Mary and not Agnes who sat on the other side of the fire.

But when a man comes to be seventy-four it is better for him that he should hold these pleasures with a light hand. There seems no reason in particular, in these days when the pressure of age is so much less than it used to be, why a man who has attained that age should not go on till he is eighty-four or more, as is so often the case. But still there are accidents which occur from time to time and prove that humanity is still weak, and that the three-score and ten is a fair limit of life. There was very cold weather in the early winter of the year in which Lord Frogmore completed his seventy-fourth and Marmaduke his fifth year. They both took bad colds, belonging as they did respectively to the most susceptible classes, but little Mar got soon better, whereas Lord Frogmore got worse. It was December, and everything was dark and dreary. The news from the asylum was agitating, for it was reported that Lady Frogmore was passing through an unexpected crisis of her malady, and that “a change” might take place at any moment. A change! what did that mean? When people in an ordinary illness speak of a change it generally means death. Was this to be the end of everything? The morning after the disturbing intelligence was received Lord Frogmore was in a high fever, and the doctors looked very anxious. It seemed as if poor little Mar was about to lose both parents at once.

CHAPTER XXIV.

“I will speak to the doctor when he comes,” said Agnes. “But oh, Rogers, you would never have the heart to leave him? What does it matter about the nurse? Try to make her useful. She does know a great deal, and she might be useful——”

“She don’t know nothing about my lord. Miss ’Ill, nobody but me knows my lord,” said Rogers solemnly. “I know just what he’ll bear, and what he won’t bear. He can’t be treated like an ’ospital case. And that’s what them women do. As if he was just a number in a bed! He’s been very different all his life, has my lord; and that’s what he won’t bear.”

“No,” said Agnes soothingly, “of course he won’t bear it; and you must just stand between him—— Rogers, what is that? I am sure I heard a carriage driving up to the door.”

“It will be someone coming to inquire,” said Rogers. “Don’t you be frightened, Miss ’Ill. If I can get free of that woman, don’t you be miserable. We’ll pull him through.”

“Do you think it can be anyone coming to inquire?” cried Agnes. “Surely there is a great commotion downstairs. Oh, Rogers, for Heaven’s sake go and see what it is. I heard a cry. What’s that? What’s that? Surely I know that voice.”

Agnes did not know what she feared. There were sounds on the stair which denoted some strange events—many voices together—the sound of steps hurrying. She stood at the door half afraid to open it, listening intently, overcome with alarms which she could not explain. What had happened? The voices came nearer, one of them talking in gentle but persistent tones. Agnes threw up her arms and uttered a wild but faint cry. What did it mean? What could it mean? The wildest hallucination, or her sister’s voice?

And then the door was opened quickly, and into the wintry daylight, in which there was no mystery, Mary walked without excitement—smiling, yet with a serious face, as if she had never left her own house where she was supreme, but was coming upstairs after a private consultation with the doctor, in which he had told her that her husband was ill, but not so ill as to cause any extreme of anxiety. She came in smiling to Agnes, and, taking both her hands, kissed her. “I am so glad,” she said, “to find you here. Then Frogmore has had someone to rely upon. Fancy I have been away on a visit, and they never told me he was ill till to-day.”

“Oh, Mary, dear!” Agnes cried. She was choking with excitement and emotion, but the imperative gesture by which her sister’s companion warned her to be on her guard stopped the tears in her eyes and the words in her mouth. Even in that glance Agnes perceived that it was the doctor in whose care Mary had been placed who came in behind her. This did something to still the beating of her amazed and anxious heart.

“Oh, Rogers,” said Mary, “I am so glad to see you before I go to him. How is he? He was quite well when I left home. Do tell me everything before I go to him: for I am sure you have never left him, you faithful servant—more faithful than his wife,” she said with a smile, turning to the doctor, who stood behind. Lady Frogmore looked exactly as if she had come from a visit as she said, a little troubled that she had not been sent for at once, yet scarcely anxious. Agnes even thought she looked younger, better, more self-possessed than of old.

“You were not aware he was ill, Lady Frogmore. You must rest a little and get warmed, and take something—a cup of tea, perhaps—before you go to his room. You must not take in too much cold air to the room of a patient with bronchitis. In the meantime I will go—shall I?—and bring you an exact report.”

“Do!” said Mary, “that will be the kindest thing. I can trust to what you say. But it is cold this morning,” she added, walking up to the fire. “I must not go and touch my dear old lord with cold hands. How are they at home, Agnes? and how long have you been here?”

“They are quite well,” said Agnes, very tremulous. “My father begins to show signs of getting old——”

“I thought him very well indeed the last time I saw him,” said Mary; “he can’t have grown much older since then. I wonder,” she added, “how Frogmore got this bad cold—it must have been the very night I went away. I think men cease taking care of themselves when they have a wife to do it for them. And Rogers used to coddle him so—I must blame Rogers. He ought to have returned to his old habits and watched him more carefully when I was away. What is this. Upjames? Tea? Yes, give it me; it will warm me. I must be warm, you know, when I go to my lord.”

“Yes, my lady,” said Upjames, in a trembling voice. He was very pale and there was fright in his voice, though he was a large man, and his restored mistress so slim and little likely to harm anyone. “I—I—am so happy, my lady—to see your ladyship so much better.”

“Oh there has been nothing the matter with me,” said Mary, quickly. “I am always well. But you should not have let my lord catch cold, Upjames, the moment my back was turned. How am I ever to go off on a visit again, however short it may be, when you take so little care of my lord?”

The big butler trembled like a leaf, a gasp came from his throat, his large cheeks hung pendulous with fright. “My lady, I——don’t know how it happened,” he stammered forth.

“Oh, I was only joking,” said Mary, “I am sure it was no one’s fault: only there should be double precautions taken about health—by every one—when the mistress of the house is away.” She gave forth this maxim with a precision that had never been usual with Mary. Altogether it seemed to her sister that Lady Frogmore had never been so sure of herself, so conscious of authority before. She drank her tea before the fire with evident comfort and pleasure in her home coming. “After all,” she said, “there is nothing like one’s own house. What is that I see over there? A rocking horse, is it? I suppose it’s a present for one of the Greenpark children. Yes, Mr. Marsden. How do you find my lord?” Fortunately, as Agnes felt, though she scarcely knew why, the doctor came in at this juncture and saved her all further trouble.

“Not so well as I could wish,” said the doctor, “but very glad to you that you have arrived, Lady Frogmore, and anxious to see you. You must not,” he added, laying his hand on her arm, “look anxious, or as if you thought him very ill. His spirits must be kept up.”

Mary rose and put down her teacup on the table. “I am afraid you find him worse than we thought.”

“No,” he said, “oh, no—but only to warn you. He does look a little ill: but he must not see that you are anxious. You must make an effort, Lady Frogmore.”

“I think I do nothing but make efforts,” she said, with a cloud upon her face, standing with her hands clasped together. Then she added, smiling, “But of course I will do what you tell me. How can he have got so ill the little time I have been away?”

Agnes followed, with her heart beating tumultuously in her bosom. What did it all mean? The little time she had been away! What could it mean? Mary spoke as if she had been absent for three days or so—and it was five years! Oh, what could it mean? Agnes followed, not knowing what to do. On her way to the sick-room Mary took off her cloak and furs and her bonnet, which she piled upon a table in the corridor. “Tell Mason to take them,” she said. Mason was the maid who had left the house when Mary had been taken away.

How strange it all was, and incomprehensible! This morning Agnes had trembled for the arrival of the letters, not knowing to what tragic tidings the agitating news of “a change” might have come—and had felt as if the burden of anxiety on her was insupportable. Now—was it lifted from her shoulders, or had it become incalculably more heavy? She could not tell. She followed with tremulous steps to the door of Lord Frogmore’s room, and then came back again, not venturing to enter. There was nothing for it but to wait till some further development should take place, till something should happen—she did not know what she hoped or feared. Lord Frogmore was very ill. Would the sight of him drive his wife back into the frenzy from which she seemed to have escaped? Would her bewildering appearance act favorably or unfavorably upon the old man, whose vitality had fallen so low? Would sorrow, if sorrow was coming, undo the astonishing advantage that had been gained? Of all these confusing questions the mind of Agnes was full to bursting. She tried to return to the morning room where she had been occupying herself as best she could, and keeping down her anxiety when Mary arrived. It was only an hour ago, but how everything had changed! And the boys? What could she say to the boys? How account to them for the strange events that had taken place while they had been out with the forester watching him mark the trees. They were anxious to tell her all about this when they came in, little Mar echoing every word that Duke said, and striking in with little bits of observation of his own. Agnes, generally so admirable a listener, could scarcely hear what they said for the tumult in her own breast. What was she to say to the children? The meeting, when it came, what would it be? Mary, who thought she had been absent on a visit of a few days, what oh what would she say to her son? Poor Agnes was like a woman distracted. She trembled at every sound. And to think that she had to sit at table with those eager boys, and to give them their dinner, and talk to them in terror every moment lest the door should be opened and Mary come in. For what would Mary say to her child?

Every torture comes to an end if we can but wait for it, and the children’s dinner was ended at last: they were so eager about the forester and the trees he was marking to cut down that to Agnes’ intense relief they hurried out again as soon as their food was swallowed. Fortunately nobody had told them of the arrival, or else they had been too much absorbed in their own exciting occupation to dwell upon it. Little Mar knew nothing of his mother. Even if he had heard that Lady Frogmore had come home, the child would probably in the bustle of his childish excitement have put no meaning to the words. And Duke, though he was older and had been Mary’s favorite, yet had much forgotten her, and would think only of his grandmother if he heard that name. This gave poor Agnes a little comfort in the hurry of her thoughts. She sat alone all the day, more anxious and miserable than words could tell. The doctor, Lord Frogmore’s own doctor, came in for a moment to tell her that he found his patient a little better. “What an astonishing recovery this is. It is the most wonderful thing I ever saw,” he said. “She has taken her place by the bedside, as good a nurse as I ever met with. She seems to think of everything. And Lord Frogmore looks quite bright. The cure of one will be the cure of the other I hope. But it is the most wonderful think I ever saw.”

“Do you think it will last, doctor?” cried Agnes.

“Well, one can never say,” he replied, oracularly. “Sometimes these things prove a success, sometimes—not. I could not give an opinion. To tell the truth, I would not trust Lady Frogmore with my patient if Marsden was not there. He keeps in the dressing-room out of sight—but he’s there, and on the watch. These mad doctors have strange ways, but I daresay he’s right. He has his eye on her all the time. He’s not very sure about her, I suppose, or he would not do that; but you and I may make ourselves easy, Miss Hill. It is Lord Frogmore who is my affair—and he is better—certainly better. I will come in the evening and let you know how he is then.”

Agnes, on whom the household affairs told heavily, and who had the anxious concern of a simple woman, to whom the provision of meals is one of the chief businesses of life, about regular food, here put in a troubled question about lunch. What should she do about lunch? She had given the boys their dinner, thinking it better not to disturb Lady Frogmore. But they must have luncheon. What should she do about lunch? It was reassuring to know that a tray had been taken to the dressing-room, and that Lady Frogmore had been attended to by the watchful guardian who was sharing her vigil. It was very strange altogether. It disturbed Agnes in every possible way in which a quiet woman could be disturbed, but yet it was a relief. And Miss Hill sat down again with the needlework which was so poor a pastime in her hands to-day, thinking, wondering, questioning to herself till she could question no more. Many a broken prayer rose to heaven that afternoon for Lord Frogmore. Oh that he might but live. Oh that he might get better! His life was more valuable, Agnes thought, than it ever could have been before. It would be his business to clear up all this imbroglio, to make everything clear. He would have the responsibility, the power would be his alone. And surely, surely, all would go well. Agnes would not look upon the other side of the picture. There must be no other side to the picture. She could not allow herself to think of what darker prospect there might be.

It was evening when Mary came into the drawing-room where Agnes was. The doctors were making their last examination of the patient for the night, and she came in to rest a little, to change the air as she said, to refresh herself. It was time for the boys to go to bed, but they had not paid much attention to Agnes’ entreaties, and in the disorganization of the house, which was full of consternation and inquiry, no authoritative messenger from the nursery had as yet come for little Mar. He was seated on his usual stool before the fire, which gave a ruddy color to his rather pale little face, and sparkled in his dark eyes. Duke lay on the rug stretched out at full length at Agnes’ feet. They were chattering still of their busy day. “I wouldn’t let him mark that old bush,” said little Mar, “it’s like an old man. Not an old man like papa, but one I’ve seen with a long beard. Papa’s an old gentleman, and they say I’m a little old man, and for love of us I wouldn’t have him mark that tree. Oh! Aunt Agnes, here is a lady! Is it the lady that came with a post-chaise, and the marks is all over the grass? Is it——”

“Hush, oh hush, Mar—don’t say a word,” cried Agnes, with her heart leaping in her throat.

Mary came in and sat down besides Agnes, a little behind her back. “I will not come to the fire,” she said, “for Frogmore’s room is very warm. I prefer to get cooled a little. I think he is better, but we will see what the doctors say. They say I ought to lie down, but I don’t think I shall want it to-night. I am quite fresh. One never wants to lie down one’s first night.”

“Oh, my dear, surely, surely they will not let you sit up?”

“Why not?” said Lady Frogmore. “I am quite fresh. I have had no fatigue as yet. And he was so pleased to see me. They all say it has done him good to have me back. What is that on the rug at your feet, Agnes? Why, it is a child! Why it is—Duke, my dear boy! I didn’t know you were here. Why, what a leap you have taken, what a huge great boy you have grown.”

Duke had sprung to his feet in the surprise. There was little light but the light from the fire—and it was five years since he had seen her. He came forward, hesitating a little, abashed and reluctant to be kissed. He was now twelve and big of his age, not apt to go through these salutations with strangers. Mary put her hands on his shoulders and held him from her to see him fully. “I can’t believe my eyes: Duke—are you sure you are Duke? You are twice as big as you were the other day. Agnes, I can scarcely believe my eyes.”

Agnes gave Duke a pull by the arm to stop his exclamation. “Yes,” she said, “he has grown very fast.”

“I never saw any child grow so fast,” said Mary in a bewildered tone. “I should scarcely have known the child.” She let him go with something of disappointment in her tone. “I can scarcely believe he is my little Duke,” she said. And then after a pause, there came the question which Agnes had been all this time trembling to hear. Mary recovered herself, putting away this touch of disappointment, and spoke again in the clear assured tones which were new to her sister.

“And who,” she said, “is this other nice little boy?”

Agnes was overcome by the sufferings of this long and agitating day. Her strength was exhausted. She could bear no more. Little Mar had turned round upon his stool and was gazing at the lady. And she with a smile, and the pleased half interest of a benevolent stranger, looked at him, holding out her hand. “Who,” she said, “is this nice little boy?”

Agnes answered, she could not help it, with something more like a scream than an exclamation, “Oh Mary! Oh Mary!” she cried.

“What is the matter?” said Mary, tranquilly. “I ought to know him, perhaps. He is one of Duke’s little playfellows, I suppose. Who are you, my nice little boy?”