“She’s so-so,” Miss Sibson answered more at her ease. After all, the great lady was human, it seemed. “She wanders, and thinks that she is in France, my lady; believes there’s a revolution, and that they are come to take her to prison. Her mind harps continually on things of that kind. And not much wonder either! But, then again she’s herself. So that you don’t know from one minute to another whether she’s sensible or not.” “Poor thing!” Lady Lansdowne murmured. “Poor woman!” Her lips moved without sound. Presently, “Her daughter is with her?” she asked. “She has scarcely left her for a minute since she was carried in,” Miss Sibson answered warmly. And to her eyes, too, there rose something like a tear. “Only with difficulty have I made her take the most necessary rest. But if your ladyship pleases, I will ask whether she will see you.” “Do so, if you please.” Miss Sibson retired for this purpose, and Lady Lansdowne, left to herself, rose and looked from the window. As soon as it had been possible to move her, the dying woman had been carried into the nearest house which had escaped the flames, and Lady Lansdowne, gazing out, looked on the scene of conflict, saw lines of ruins, still asmoke in parts, and discerned between the scorched limbs of trees, from which the last foliage had fallen, the blackened skeletons of houses. A gaping crowd was moving round the Square, under the eyes of special constables, who, distinguished by white bands on their arms, guarded the various entrances. Hundreds, doubtless, who would fain have robbed were there to stare; but for the most part the guilty shunned the scene, and the gazers consisted mainly of sightseers from the country, or from Bath, or of knots of merchants and traders and the like who argued, some that this was what came of Reform, others that not Reform but the refusal of Reform was to blame for it. Presently she saw Sir Robert’s stately figure threading its way through the crowd. He walked erect, but with effort; yet though her heart swelled with pity, it was not with pity for him. He would have his daughter and in a few days, in a few weeks, in a few months at most, the clouds would pass and leave him to enjoy the clear evening of his days. But for her whom he had taken to his house twenty years before in the bloom of her beauty, the envied, petted, spoiled child of fortune, who had sinned so lightly and paid so dearly, and who now lay distraught at the close of all, what evening remained? What gleam of light? What comfort at the last? In her behalf, the heart which Whig pride, and family prejudice, and the cares of riches had failed to harden, swelled to bursting. “He must forgive her!” she ejaculated. “He shall forgive her!” And gliding to the door she stayed Mary, who was in the act of entering. “I must see your father,” she said. “He is mounting the stairs now. Go to your mother, my dear, and when I ring, do you come!”