'Trying? I'm racked with the rheumatics every winter, your honour. My bones are not so much bones as gnawing wolves—they torment me so. Sometimes I feel as if I could chop off my limbs willingly, to be quit of the pain in 'em. A settled home—a warm bed—a fireside—that would be heaven to me.' 'Well, I'll think about it, and see what can be done for you. In the meantime I'll give you a trifle to ward off the rheumatism.' He opened his purse, and gave the woman a bank note, part of an advance made him by Mr. Pergament that morning. The gipsy uttered her usual torrent of blessings—the gratitude wherewith she was wont to salute her benefactors. 'Have you ever been in Cornwall?' asked Churchill. 'Lord love your honour! there isn't a nook or a corner in all England where I haven't been!' 'Good. If you happen to be in Cornwall any time during the next three months, you may look me up at Penwyn Manor.' 'Bless you, my generous gentleman, it won't be very long before you see me.' 'Whenever you please,' returned Churchill, with that air of well-bred indifference which he wore as a badge of his class. 'Good afternoon.' He turned to go back to the city, leaving the woman standing alone by the river brink, looking after him; lost in thought, or lost in wonder. CHAPTER XV. 'THEY SHALL PASS, AND THEIR PLACES BE TAKEN?' The letter which told Miss Bellingham that her lover was master of Penwyn seemed to her almost like the end of a fairy tale. Lady Cheshunt had dropped in to afternoon tea only a quarter of an hour before the letter arrived, and Madge was busy with the old Battersea cups and saucers, and the quaint little Wedgwood teapot, when the accomplished serving man, who never abated one iota of his professional solemnity because his wages were doubtful, presented Churchill's letter on an antique salver. 'Put it on the table, please,' said Madge, busy with the tea-service, and painfully conscious that the dowager's eye was upon her. She had recognised Churchill's hand at a glance, and thought how daring, nay, even impudent it was of him to write to her. It was mean of him to take such advantage of her weakness that Sunday morning, she thought. True, that in one fatal moment she had let him discover the secret she was most anxious to hide; but she had given him no right over her. She had made him no promise. Her love had been admitted hypothetically. 'If we lived in a different world. If I had myself only to consider,' she had said to him; which meant that she would have nothing to do with him under existing circumstances. She glanced at Viola, that fragile Sèvres china beauty, with her air of being unfitted for the vulgar uses of life. 'Poor child! For her sake I ought to marry Mr. Balecroft, that pompous Manchester merchant; or that vapid young fop, Sir Henry Featherstone,' she thought, with a sigh.