A day or two later Lady Davyntry heard from her brother. Margaret was not so well; the cold was obstinate and exhausting; he deeply regretted her return to Scotland; only for the risk of travelling, he should take her away immediately. The next letter was not more reassuring, and Lady Davyntry made up her mind to go to Scotland without delay. In this resolution James Dugdale, with a sick and sinking heart, confirmed her. Not a word of actual danger was said in the letters which reached Davyntry daily, but the alarm which James felt was not slow to communicate itself to Eleanor. "She has been delicate for a long time," said Lady Davyntry to James, "and very much more so latterly than she ever acknowledged." In reply to her proposal to go at once to the Deane, Eleanor had an urgent letter of thanks from her brother. Margaret was not better--strangely weak indeed. Lady Davyntry was to start on the next day but one after the receipt of this letter, and James went over to Davyntry on the intervening day. He had a long interview with Eleanor, and, having left her, was walking wearily towards home, when he saw Hayes Meredith and Robert rapidly advancing to meet him. He quickened his pace, and they met where the footpath wound by the clump of beech-trees, once so distasteful in Margaret's sight. There was not a gleam of colour in Meredith's face, and as James came up the boy shrunk back behind his father. "What's the matter?" said James, coming to a dead stop in front of Meredith. "My dear fellow, you will need courage. Baldwin's valet has come from the Deane." "Yes!" said James in a gasping voice. "Margaret was much worse after Baldwin wrote, and the child--a girl--was born that afternoon. The child--" "Is dead?" James tore his coat open as he asked the question, as if choking. "No, my dear fellow"--his friend took his arm firmly within his own--"the poor child is alive, but Margaret is gone." CHAPTER XI. AFTER A YEAR. _Lady Davyntry to James Dugdale_. "The Deane, March 17, 18--. "MY DEAR MR. DUGDALE,--Your last letter, imposing upon me the task of advising my brother, in the sense of the conclusions arrived at by yourself and Mr. Meredith, gave me a great deal to think about. I could not answer it fully before, and I am sure the result which I have now to state to you will not, in reality, be displeasing to you, but I cannot uphold its soundness of wisdom, in a worldly sense, even to my own judgment--though it carries with it all my sympathies; and I am confident Mr. Meredith will entirely disapprove of it.