"You dear good Hill!" I cried, in my delight. "I'll never call you cross again." "Then just please to put your things on at once, and leave off talking nonsense, Miss Hereford," was Hill's reproval. Again, as before, it was a lovely day, and altogether the greatest treat they could have given me. I liked the drive, and I liked the state it was taken in. A magnificent carriage and horses, powdered servants, and one pretty girl seated inside. Which was ME! It was a good opportunity to inquire after my lost handkerchief, and I told James to stop at Mrs. Howard's. Accordingly the carriage drew up there the first thing. But the answer was not satisfactory. Mrs. Howard was gone. "On the Continent," they believed. "When will she be back?" I asked, leaning from the carriage to speak. The servant girl, rather a dirty one and slipshod, did not know. Not at all, she thought. Mrs. Howard had left for good. "But does Mrs. Howard not live here? Is not this her house?" "No, ma'am. She lodged here for a little while; that was all." I don't know why the information struck on my mind as curious, but it did so. Why should she have been there one day, as it were, and be gone the next? It might be all right, however, and I fanciful. Mrs. Penn had said—Mrs. Howard herself had said—she was going to visit her daughter in Brussels. Only I had thought she lived in that house at Marden. That evening I found I had to dine alone. Mr. Chandos was rather poorly, not able to eat any dinner, Hickens said. How solitary it was to me, nobody knows. Afterwards, when I was sitting at the window in the dusk, he came downstairs. He had been in the west wing nearly all day. Opening his desk, he took out a bundle of letters: which appeared to be what he had come for. "You must feel lonely, Miss Hereford?" "A little, sir." "That 'sir!'" he said, with a smile. "I am sorry not to be able to be down here with you. When I get better, we will have our pleasant times again." I was standing up by the table. He held out his hand to shake mine. Thin and shadowy he always looked, but his face wore a grey hue in the dusk of the room. "I fear you are very ill, sir. Suppose it should be the fever?" "It is not the fever." "But how can you tell it is not?" "Do not be alarmed. It is nothing but—but what I have had before. Good-night, and take care of yourself." His tone was strangely sad, his spirits were evidently depressed, and a foreboding of ill fell upon me. It was not lessened when I heard that a bed was made up for him in the west wing, that Lady Chandos and Hill might be within call in the night in case of need. Therefore, when consternation broke over the house next morning, I was half prepared for it. Mr. Chandos was alarmingly ill, and a telegraphic express had gone up at dawn for a London physician.