Still, the child slept quietly; and now Heather’s thoughts reverted to Bessie. What could be the matter with the girl? Why had she been crying the previous night? Why did she so persistently ignore Mr. Harcourt’s very existence? How did it happen that the time for her marriage seemed no nearer now than it had done in the summer? That Mr. Harcourt was a devoted correspondent, Heather knew by the evidence of her own eyes. Scarcely a morning passed without the post-bag bringing a long epistle from him to his affianced wife. Bessie’s acknowledgments of these epistles were despatched at much longer and more uncertain intervals; but then Bessie did not profess to be a good correspondent. “She hated letter-writing and letter-writers,” she openly declared; so that her negligence in this particular proved nothing. Besides, her time had been much occupied with Lally, and altogether—— As she reached this point in her mental argument, Mrs. Dudley heard a sound as though a door were being softly opened and closed at the end of the corridor. With that nervous fear upon her, which seems so often the advance courier of some disaster, the messenger spurring on to tell us of the approach of misfortune, Heather went out into the passage and listened. Yes, there was some one moving stealthily and cautiously in the direction of the back staircase—a woman, for Mrs. Dudley could hear the skirt of her dress brushing against the wall as she stole along. It could not be any of the servants, because they had no business in that part of the house;—their sleeping-rooms being in the roof, and access to those apartments only possible by means of the back staircase which opened out of the front kitchen. There was a door of communication, however, between the long south corridor, where the principal bedchambers were situated, and the other portion of the house; and this door Heather now heard close softly, as the first had done. Satisfied that Bessie must be ill and about to seek Mrs. Piggott’s apartment, Heather hurried after; but when she came to try to open the door, it resisted all her efforts. As a rule, the key remained on the side next the main staircase. Now, Heather found it had been removed, and the door locked from within. Not knowing what all this could mean, she went back to Lally’s room, took a candle, and, descending into the hall, made her way along a passage which led in the direction of the offices. Crossing the front kitchen, she opened the door which led towards the back staircase, and there on the last step stood Priscilla Dobbin. “What are you doing? where are you going?” asked her mistress. “I was coming down to look at the clock, ma’am,” answered the girl. “You have just left Miss Ormson’s room—is she ill?” “No, ma’am, not as I know of. She told me last night to go to her room when I got up for a letter for Master Alick to take to town.” “And where is that letter?” asked Mrs. Dudley.