“I told you so,” she said, triumphantly; “now didn’t I tell you so? He wanted to take me in--I felt it from the very first; but he hadn’t got to do with a fool, as he thought. I was even with him for that.” “I have written to find out if your Scotch witnesses are alive,” said Edgar. “Alive!--why shouldn’t they be alive, like I am, and like he is?” she cried, with feverish irritability. “Folks of our ages don’t die!--what are you thinking of? And if they were dead, what would it matter?--there’s their names as good as themselves. Ah! I didn’t botch my business any more than he botched his. You’ll find it’s all right.” “I hope you are better,” Edgar said, with a compassion that was all the more profound because the object of it neither deserved, nor would have accepted it. “Better--oh! thank you, I am quite well,” she said lightly--“only a bit of a cold. Perhaps on the whole it’s as well I’m not going to sing to-night; a cold is so bad for one’s voice. Good-bye, Mr. Earnshaw. We’ll meet at the old gentleman’s turnout to-night.” And she waved her hand, dismissing poor Edgar, who left her with a warmer sense of disgust, and dislike than had ever moved his friendly bosom before. And yet it was in this creature’s interests he was working, and against Clare! Mr. Tottenham caught him on his way out, to hand him a number of letters which had arrived for him, and to call for his advice in the final preparations. The public had been shut out of the hall in which the Entertainment was to be, on pretence of alterations. “Three more resignations,” Mr. Tottenham said, who was feverish and harassed, and looked like a man at the end of his patience. “Heaven be praised, it will be over to-night? Come early, Earnshaw, if you can spare the time, and stand by me. If any of the performers get cross, and refuse to perform, what shall I do?” “Let them!” cried Edgar; “ungrateful fools, after all your kindness.” Edgar was too much harassed and annoyed himself to be perfectly rational in his judgments. “Don’t let us be uncharitable,” said Mr. Tottenham; “have they perhaps, after all, much reason for gratitude? Is it not my own crotchet I am carrying out, in spite of all obstacles? But it will be a lesson--I think it will be a lesson,” he added. “And, Earnshaw, don’t fail me to-night.”