Mrs. Abercarne had thought it wiser not to look at her daughter while she said this, so she did not see the cloud which darkened on the girl’s face at the mention of the name. When Chris next spoke, however, there was a difference in her tone. “Mother, I want to speak to Stelfox.” Mrs. Abercarne flushed again, and frowned slightly with perplexity. She wished her daughter would not make such awkward requests. After a moment’s hesitation she asked: “Why, my dear? What have you got to say to him? I am quite sure,” she went on, hurriedly, “that the doctor would not allow you to see anybody just yet.” Chris turned slowly and looked at her mother. “Has he been sent away?” she asked abruptly. “Well, my dear, I don’t know whether he has been sent away for good or not, but he is certainly away at present.” The girl’s face fell again, and her mother in vain tried to rouse her from the depression into which she had sunk. The hopelessness which had fallen upon the girl like a pall retarded her convalescence. She took no interest in anything; the only way in which her mother could rouse any emotion in her was by an allusion to Mr. Bradfield; and then the feeling shown by the girl was one of the utmost abhorrence. Poor Mrs. Abercarne, therefore, soon began to find herself in a very awkward position between her employer on the one hand, eagerly anxious to see the girl, or even to minister to her pleasure, unseen, in any way that might be suggested; and her daughter on the other, who had conceived such a strong aversion for the man that she would not even look at the books and papers her mother brought her, because she knew that they were supplied by him. Her dislike, indeed, to the very sound of his name was becoming almost a mania, so that Mrs. Abercarne feared she would have to leave Wyngham on account of it. It need scarcely be said that Mrs. Abercarne, who had been completely won by John Bradfield’s passion for her daughter, not only acquitted him of the crime her daughter chose to suggest in the matter of the fire, but looked upon the disappearance of the lunatic, either by suicide or by misadventure, as a very fortunate circumstance. CHAPTER XXX. MR. MARRABLE AGAIN. The doctor was troubled by the slowness of the girl’s convalescence, and by her own lack of a strong desire to get well again. He recommended change for one thing, and cheerful society. Now the one was as difficult to get as the other. Change could only be got by sacrificing a situation to the disadvantages of which Mrs. Abercarne had grown accustomed, while its advantages she appreciated more every day. Cheerful society seemed more out of the question still. It was therefore with a feeling almost of gratitude that Mrs. Abercarne, while sitting by her daughter’s sofa one morning, heard that Miss Lilith Graham-Shute was downstairs, and that she wanted to know if she could see Miss Abercarne.