'I do heartily pray nothing has happened to him--it is dreadful to think how wet he will get in this rain, poor fellow; and he must be in Chester to-morrow, he said. I wish he had spent the night here.' 'And so do I; but it was of my husband that I spoke.' 'Oh, Sir Norman knows his way about! wasn't he born and bred here? No fear but he will find his way home safe enough.' 'But he should have been away half an hour at the most: and now--see! it is close upon midnight. I fear something has gone wrong.' 'It is the rain that keeps him. He has taken shelter somewhere, and will bide his time till the worst of it is over. But my poor cousin--what will become of him! Heigho! I felt, when I said good-bye to him, as if 'twas for ever.' Lady Kildhurm laid down the sewing with which she had been occupying herself and clasping her hands on her knee, sat gazing out on the black and rain-smitten window-pane. Suddenly she said: 'This is his evil day. I had forgotten it. Oh, my heart!' 'His evil day, sister? What do you mean?' 'Yes; he showed me it once in his horoscope. The evil and the good came side by side, but the evil was the stronger. He should not have gone out; to-night of all nights I should have kept him! Oh, Norman--my husband, come back to me!' 'La, sister, how you talk! you make me shudder. As for horoscopes, I'm sure no Christian ought to believe in them.' 'I feel as if he were near me!' exclaimed Lady Kildhurm, rising from her chair and moving about the room uneasily. 'He is near me, somewhere, and yet I am not happy: I cannot breathe freely, and there is pain in my heart.' 'La! sister, indeed you frighten me. Pray sit down again, and do not stare about so! do you think to see him through a stone wall?' 'He is near me--and it is not well with him. He is looking towards me--now--can you not see his face at the window?' 'His face at the window! Pray remember, my dear, that the window is fifty feet from the ground, and----' 'No, there is no face there. It was a flake of foam, maybe. But I cannot bear to lose him; I could not bear it!' 'You are working yourself into such a state of mind, my dear, that very soon I shall be more anxious about you than I am about him. As for not being able to bear things, you never know what you can bear till you try. I have borne the loss of my husband, and a great many worse things. One can bear almost anything, I believe. Because, if the thing to be borne comes, what else can you do?' 'I could not bear it!' repeated Lady Kildhurm feverishly. She moved again to the window, and peered out for a few moments into the darkness. 'Depend upon it,' said Mrs. Chepstow, with a confidence of tone that was not altogether warranted by her interior sentiments, 'depend upon it, my dear, your husband has stepped into one of the peasants' huts out of the rain, and is at this very instant swallowing a draught of hot ale, with a pipe of tobacco in his other hand. How he will laugh when I tell him how you have----'