He was eating an egg at the time, and he did not speak immediately: his attention seemed almost equally divided between regarding me and finishing the egg. "What you young ladies might call alarmingly ill, we old doctors might not," were his words, when he at length spoke. "Can she speak?" "Oh, yes." "And is sufficiently well to understand, if any one speaks to her?" "Quite so. Don't trouble yourself, my dear, about Lady Chandos. I trust she will be all right with time." Not another word did I get from him. He began talking of the weather; and then took up a newspaper until Mr. Chandos came back. As I was leaving them alone after breakfast, Mr. Chandos spoke to me in a half-grave, half-jesting tone. "You are one of the family, you know, Miss Hereford, and may be asked to keep its affairs close, just as Emily would be were she here. Don't mention that I went to Warsall in the night—as you have now heard I did go. It is of no use to make the household uneasy." And, as if to enforce the words, Dr. Laken gave three or four emphatic nods. I bowed and withdrew. To see lady Chandos? How was it to be done? And, in spite of Dr. Laken's reassuring answer, I scarcely knew what to believe. Hill went about with a solemn face, silent as the grave; and an impression pervaded the household that something was very much amiss in the west wing. _My_ impression was, that there was a great deal of unaccountable mystery somewhere. "Harriet," I said, as the girl came to my room in thin course of her duties, "how _is_ Lady Chandos?" "Well, Miss, we can't quite make out," was the answer. "Hill is in dreadful trouble, and the doctor is here again; but Lizzy Dene saw my lady for a minute this morning, and she looked much as usual." So far well. To Lady Chandos I determined to penetrate ere the day should close. And I am sure, had anybody seen me that morning, dodging into the gallery from my room and back again, they would have deemed me haunted by a restless spirit. I was watching for my opportunity. It did not come for nearly all day. In the morning Dr. Laken and Mr. Chandos were there; in the afternoon Hill was shut up in it. It was getting dusk when I, still on the watch, saw Hill come forth. She left the door ajar, as if she intended to return instantly, and whisked into a large linen-closet close by. Now was my time. I glided past the closet, quiet as a mouse, and inside the green-baize door of the west wing. But which was the room of Lady Chandos? No time was to be lost, for if Hill returned, she was sure to eject me summarily, as she had done once before. I softly opened two doors, taking no notice of what the rooms might contain, looking only whether Lady Chandos was inside. Next I came to one, and opened it, as I had the others; and saw—what? Who—who was it sitting there? Not Lady Chandos.