Faces were grave and serious as the sense of Abner’s words penetrated beyond the immediate circle round him. The Duchess of Penarvon had been long ill: for several years she had been more or less of an invalid; but it had not been known until quite recently that the nature of her malady was so serious as it had now proved to be, and the confirmation of the tidings of her extremity was received with a considerable amount of feeling. The Duke was a stern grave man, just and not unkindly, but self-restrained and hard in his looks and words, whatever his acts might be. But the Duchess was gentle and kindly towards rich and poor alike, and had a personal acquaintance with most of the fisher-folk and cottagers in the parishes of St. Bride and St. Erme. If those who were in trouble could obtain speech with the Duchess, they nearly always went rejoicing home again. If any casualty occurred amongst the fisher-folk in the bay during a winter storm, the Duchess was almost sure to send substantial aid to make up the loss. It was no wonder then that the news Abner brought with him was regarded as a public calamity, and that even those who had drunk most deeply of the farmer’s cider were sobered into gravity and propriety of demeanour by the thought of what was passing at the castle down by the Bay of St. Bride. “I came to fetch Saul to bide with me till Monday,” explained Abner. “It makes a bit of company, and my heart is heavy with sorrow for them all. They say that Lady Bride looks as if her heart was breaking. She and her mother have been together almost by night and day, ever since the Duchess’s health first failed her so sadly. It’ll be a sad day for her, poor young thing, when her mother is taken from her.” “Ay, that it will be,” answered one and another, and heads were gravely shaken. For the position of Lady Bride in stately solitude at Penarvon Castle, without the sheltering protection of her mother’s love, was felt even by these unimaginative rustics to be a trying one. It was whispered around that her father had never quite forgiven her for not being a boy. It was hard upon him that their only child should be a girl, incapable of inheriting title or estates. He was not a violent or irascible man, but the disappointment of having no son had eaten deeply into his nature, and there had always been a sense of injured disapproval in his dealings with his daughter, of which that sensitive young thing had been keenly conscious. It had thrown her more and more upon the one parent of whose love she felt secure, and even the unlettered village hinds (who knew a good deal of the tittle-tattle of the servants’ hall) could stand mute and struck for a few minutes in contemplating the thought of the terrible blank that would be left in the girl’s life when her invalid mother was taken away.