"I _could_ not help it," he hastily murmured in agitation. "I know it is wrong and foolish, but a man has not always his actions under cold control. Forgive me Anne! Stay here to gladden me: and hope, with me, that things will work round. I should not bid you do so without good reason." A variety of emotions nearly choked me. His words told upon me worse than his kisses. How could things work round so that he might be free, save by one event, the death of his wife?—and she was young and healthy! How dared he during this, her life, urge me to remain there to gladden him? But for the strongest control, I should have burst into hysterical tears born of indignation and of excitement; and little recked what I said in my passion, as I wrenched my arm away from him. "Things work round, Mr. Chandos! Are your thoughts glancing to a second murder?" I borrowed the word from Mrs. Penn's mysterious communication—winch I had not believed. It was very bad of me to say it; I know that; but when in a passion of confusion one does not wait to choose words. "Anne, you might have spared me that reproach," he rejoined, in a subdued tone of pain. "How have you spared me?" "It may end brightly yet; it may indeed. What's that?" A rustling amidst the dense shrubs on the right caused the question. Possibly with an idea that it might be Edwin Barley, Mr. Chandos quitted me to look. I darted across the road, and plunged amidst the trees, intending to get on by a bye-path, and so escape him. Suddenly I came upon Lizzy Dene, talking to a man. She started back, with a faint cry. "I am going right for the house, am I not, Lizzy?" "Quite so, Miss. Take the path on the right when you come to the weeping elm-tree." I had nearly gained the tree, when Lizzy Dene came up with me. The woman seemed to be in agitation as great as mine. "Miss," she began, "will you do me a favour, and not mention who you saw me talking to?" "I should be clever to mention it, Lizzy. I don't know him." "But, please Miss, not to say you saw me talking to any one. The young man is not a sweetheart, I do assure you; he is a relation; but those servants are dreadful scandalmongers." "You need not fear; it is no affair of mine. And I am not in the habit of telling tales to servants." She continued to walk a little behind me. It seemed I was to have nothing but encounters. There, on a garden-chair, as we turned on to the lawn, sat Mrs. Penn. "I am sitting here to recover breath," she said, in answer to my word of exclamation. "It has been taken away by surprise. I don't quite know whether I am awake or dreaming." "Have you seen the ghost, ma'am?" asked Lizzy, breathlessly, putting her own comment on the words. "Well, I don't know; I should just as soon have expected to see one as Lady Chandos. She was in the pine-walk. "Impossible, Mrs. Penn," I exclaimed.