"Well, now, you must just go in again, and I'll follow. A fine thing it would be for the jabbering folk of Chancton to learn of these crazy comings and goings!" And, as Lucy made no haste to obey him, he added sharply, "Now you just knock and open the door and walk right in. We don't want old Jean to be the one to disturb them, eh?" Lucy knocked, and opened the door with hesitating fingers. What she then saw was James Berwick quietly engaged in putting some coal on the fire; as the girl and Doctor McKirdy came in, he did not look round, but went on mechanically picking up the little lumps and putting them noiselessly into the grate. "Well now, you've had two visitors, that's quite enough for one day,"--the doctor spoke very gently. "Here's Miss Kemp come to say good-bye, and Mr. Berwick no doubt will do himself the pleasure of taking her to the Grange, for it's a very dark night." He added in an aside, "I'm always finding you cavaliers, eh, Miss Lucy?" Berwick came forward: "Yes, of course I will! By the way, I'm staying here to-night, so will you dine with me, McKirdy?" "Well, no, I don't think I will. By the way, I'll be staying here too, and you'll do well to have your dinner in your bed, I'm thinking." He followed Barbara's two visitors to the door: "I can't make out how you ever did it, man, if it's true the meeting didn't break up till after twelve----" For the first time Berwick laughed. "Come," he said, "where are your wits? Specials, of course--and if we hadn't had a stupid, an inexcusable delay at Crewe, I should have been here hours ago!" And then, without again looking at Barbara, he followed Lucy out into the corridor, and down into the hall. "Just one moment, Miss Kemp. I must put on my boots. I took them off before coming upstairs." "But I can go home alone perfectly well." "No, indeed! I should like to take you. Mrs. Rebell has been telling me how good you were to her the other night." And not another word was said by him or by Lucy till they exchanged a brief good-night at the Grange gate. * * * * * The Priory and its inmates settled down to a long period of quietude. With the possible exception of Lucy Kemp and Oliver Boringdon--who both called there daily--little or nothing was known in the village save that Mrs. Rebell was slowly, very slowly, getting better. No Chancton gossip could discover exactly how much she had been injured, and even Mrs. Boringdon could learn nothing definite from her son. At last there came a day when the mistress of Chancton Cottage thought she would make a little experiment. "Is it true that Mrs. Rebell is now allowed to be downstairs?" "Yes." "Then you are seeing her, I suppose?" "Yes, sometimes, for a little while." "Parliament met last week, didn't it?" The question sounded rather irrelevant. Oliver looked up: "Yes, mother, of course--on the fifteenth."