But even in those piney glades, while the click of the croquet balls was sounding to an accompaniment of silvery laughter, his fancy went back to the Bloomsbury parlour and the happy hours he had wasted there, and he longed to sit in his old corner reading Victor Hugo, or sipping tea out of the dragon china. It was late when he drove back to Borcel in Michael Trevanard’s dog-cart, which had been placed at his disposal for the day. When he came down to breakfast next morning, Mrs. Trevanard’s chair was empty. This startled him, for, ill as she was, she had been rigidly regular in her habits, coming downstairs at eight o’clock every morning, and only retiring when the rest of the family went to bed. On questioning Mr. Trevanard, he heard that the invalid was much weaker this morning. She had not been able to rise. ‘It’s a bad sign when Bridget gives way,’ added Michael, despondently. ‘She’s not one to knock under while she has strength to bear up against her weakness.’ The next day and the next the chair remained empty. Maurice hung about the farm, hardly knowing what to do with himself in this time of trouble, yet nowise willing to desert his post. On the third day he was summoned to Mrs. Trevanard’s room. Phœbe, the housemaid, came in quest of him to an old orchard, where he was fond of smoking his cigar. ‘Missus is very bad, sir, and I believe she’s asked to see you,’ said the girl, breathless. Maurice hurried to the house, and to Mrs. Trevanard’s room. Husband and son were standing near the bed, and the dying woman lay with her hand elapsed in Martin’s, her eyes looking with a strangely eager expression towards the door. At the sight of Maurice her wan face brightened ever so little, and she gave a faint choking cry. ‘Want—tell you—something,’ she gasped, half inarticulately. He went close to the bed and leaned over her. ‘Dear Mrs. Trevanard, I am listening.’ ‘A Bible—gave—family Bible.’ That was all. She spoke no more after this; and before nightfall the windows were darkened at Borcel End, and the careful housewife had gone to that land where there is no thought of sordid things. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER II ‘THOU HAST ALL SEASONS FOR THINE OWN, O DEATH!’ What was it that Mrs. Trevanard would have told when death sealed her lips for ever? This was the question which Maurice Clissold asked himself many a time in those dismal days at Borcel End, when the house was darkened, while he and Martin sat together in friendly silence, full of sympathy, and for the most part alone, Mr. Trevanard preferring the solitude of the best parlour in this day of affliction. What was that circumstance or detail which she would have told him, and what clue to the mystery was he to discover from those two words, ‘family Bible,’ the only words that he had been able clearly to gather from the dying woman’s disjointed speech?