Before the London physician made his appearance Clare and her uncle had met at breakfast, and she had learned all there was to be known on the subject which had taken entire and terrible possession of her mind: It seemed to Clare now that she had no power of thinking of anything else, that it was quite impossible that only yesterday morning she was a careless unconscious girl musing over a romantic incident in her life, speculating vaguely upon the possibility of any result accruing from it in the future, and feeling as far removed from the crimes and dangers of life as if they had no existence. Now she took her place opposite her uncle with a face whose pallor and expression of deep-seated trouble even that unobservant and self-engrossed potentate could not fail to notice. He did observe the alteration in Clare's looks, and was not altogether displeased by it. It argued deep solicitude for Mrs. Carruthers of Poynings--an extremely proper sentiment; so Mr. Carruthers consoled his niece after his stately fashion, acknowledging, at the same time, the unaccountable vagaries of fever, and assuring Clare that there was nothing infectious in the case--a subject on which it had never occurred to the girl to feel any uneasiness. Not so with Mr. Carruthers, who had a very great dread of illness of every kind, and a superstitious reverence for the medical art. The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the post, and Mr. Carruthers's attention was again drawn to the subject of the murder and the possibility of promoting his own importance in connection with it. Clare's pale face turned paler as her uncle took up the first letter of the number presented to him by Thomas (footman), that official looking peculiarly intelligent on the occasion; for the letter bore the magic inscription, "On Her Majesty's Service," and the seal of the Home Office. Mr. Carruthers took some time to read the letter, even with the aid of the gold eye-glasses. It came from Mr. Dalrymple, who wrote an abnormally bad hand even for a government official--a circumstance which Mr. Carruthers mentally combined with the beard, of which he retained an indignant remembrance as a sign of the degeneracy of the age. The irrepressible pompousness of the man showed itself even in this crisis of affairs, as he perused the document, and laid it down upon the table under the hand armed with the eye-glasses. Clare waited breathless. "Hem! my dear," he began; "this letter is connected with the matter I mentioned to you yesterday. You remember, I daresay, about the murder, and the inquiry I was requested by the government to make at Amherst." O yes, Clare remembered; she had been very much interested. Had anything since transpired? "Nothing of any moment. This letter is from Mr. Dalrymple--the gentleman who came here, as I told you, from Lord Wolstenholme." Clare, still breathless, bowed. There was no use in trying to accelerate Mr. Carruthers's speech. He was not to be hurried.