Celia sent her memory back to the time, and a dim vision gradually revealed itself to her of one winter night when, awaking suddenly, she had fancied she heard mice in the wainscot, and the next morning the black cat had suffered at the hands of Molly for the absence of a partridge and a cold chicken from the buttery. "But how came my step-mother to know anything about this hidden chamber?" "Through Stevens, who at one time was among her confessors. Oh! the priests know their old hiding-places, though the owners may have lost the tradition of them." "Have you seen my Lady Ingram of late?" "Within the last six months." "How does she at Chaillot?" "The nuns say she is killing herself with austerities, and she looks as though she might be. She has her salvation to make, you see." "What a dreadful delusion!" sighed Celia. "One of man's hundred usurpations of the prerogative of God. If man may not save himself wholly, he will save himself in part; he will do anything rather than let Christ do everything. 'Tis just the world, the flesh, and the devil, in a peculiar shape, and of a very fair color. 'Puffed up by his fleshly mind,'[2] saith St. Paul of this manner of mortifying of the flesh. The subtlest serving of the devil lies, I think, in this kind of renouncing of the world. And the world, in whatever shape, 'passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.'"[3] As Edward spoke the last word, the old clock in the hall struck nine. Both rose, and Edward, drawing Celia to him, kissed his last farewell. "God be brother and sister to you, dear," he said, "and keep thee in all thy ways;[4] set thee in the secret place of the Most High, that thou mayest abide under the shadow of the Almighty.[5] Christ be with thee! Amen!" They went softly down to the door opening into the well, outside of which was Harry with a ladder. There was another figure there beside Harry's, but the moonlight was not sufficient to show who it might be. "Say farewell to Patient for me," said Edward. "I wish I could have seen her. Adieu!" In another minute Edward was safely landed. As soon as he touched the ground, the second figure came forward and threw its arms round his neck. "Eh, my bairn! my bairn!" sobbed a voice which both Edward and Celia knew well. "I could never bear to let you go but a word. The Lord bless thee and guide thee! My ain bit laddie, that I nursed!" Edward returned the embrace very warmly. Patient had always been far more of a mother to him than Lady Ingram. He seemed disposed to hesitate for a moment, but Harry urged him away, and motioned to Celia to return. She left the three on the outside of the well. Harry and Edward hastening to the place where the horse waited, and Patient, silent and motionless, watching her darling pass from her sight.