“Stay,” said Mrs. Poyntz. “Would you much care if I sent the servant to Dr. Jones?” “Ah, madam, you are cruel! What have I done that you should become my enemy?” “Enemy! No. You have just befriended one of my friends. In this world of fools intellect should ally itself with intellect. No; I am not your enemy! But you have not yet asked me to be your friend.” Here she put into my hands a note she had written while thus speaking. “Receive your credentials. If there be any cause for alarm, or if I can be of use, send for me.” Resuming the work she had suspended, but with lingering, uncertain fingers, she added, “So far, then, this is settled. Nay, no thanks; it is but little that is settled as yet.” CHAPTER IX. In a very few minutes I was once more in the grounds of that old gable house; the servant, who went before me, entered them by the stairs and the wicket-gate of the private entrance; that way was the shortest. So again I passed by the circling glade and the monastic well,--sward, trees, and ruins all suffused in the limpid moonlight. And now I was in the house; the servant took up-stairs the note with which I was charged, and a minute or two afterwards returned and conducted me to the corridor above, in which Mrs. Ashleigh received me. I was the first to speak. “Your daughter--is--is--not seriously ill, I hope. What is it?” “Hush!” she said, under her breath. “Will you step this way for a moment?” She passed through a doorway to the right. I followed her, and as she placed on the table the light she had been holding, I looked round with a chill at the heart,--it was the room in which Dr. Lloyd had died. Impossible to mistake. The furniture indeed was changed, there was no bed in the chamber; but the shape of the room, the position of the high casement, which was now wide open, and through which the moonlight streamed more softly than on that drear winter night, the great square beams intersecting the low ceiling,--all were impressed vividly on my memory. The chair to which Mrs. Ashleigh beckoned me was placed just on the spot where I had stood by the bedhead of the dying man. I shrank back,--I could not have seated myself there. So I remained leaning against the chimney-piece, while Mrs. Ashleigh told her story.