Mr. Ffrench heard the news from his valet in the morning. He had been very unwell for several days. He had eaten nothing and slept very little and had been obliged to call in his physician, who pronounced his case the result of too great mental strain, and prescribed rest. He came down to breakfast with an unwholesome face and trifled with his food without eating it. He glanced furtively at Rachel again and again. "I shall not go to the Bank to-day," he said timorously at last. "I am worse than ever. I shall remain at home and try to write letters and rest. Are--are you going out?" "Yes," she answered. "Oh." Then, after a pause, he said, "I saw Briarley yesterday, and he said Mrs. Dixon was very ill. You sometimes go there, I believe?" "Yes." "Suppose--suppose you call this morning to inquire. It looks well to show a--a sort of interest in them. You might take something nourishing with you." He flinched when she raised her eyes and let them rest a moment upon him. Her look was strongly suggestive of the fact that she could better rely upon the result of her own calculations concerning him than upon the truth of his replies, if she deigned to ask him questions. "I thought," he faltered, "that it would look well to evince some interest, as the man has been in our employ, and you have had the woman about the house." "Certainly," she replied, "it would be well enough. I will go." After breakfast she ordered the carriage and went to her room and made her toilette with some care. Why she did so was best known to herself. Nothing is more certain than that she scarcely expected to produce a great effect upon Granny Dixon. The truth was, she would have made her visit to the Briarley's in any case, and was not in the least moved thereto by her father's unexpected anxiety. But when she reached the cottage and entered it, she began immediately to repent having come. A neighbor woman sat nursing the youngest Briarley; there was a peculiar hush upon the house and the windows were darkened. She drew back with a feeling of alarm and annoyance. "What is the matter?" she demanded impatiently of the woman. "Why have you darkened the room?" "Th' owd lass is deein," was the business-like answer, "an' they're ha'in' some trouble wi' her. She conna even dee loike other foak." She drew back, her annoyance becoming violent repulsion. She turned pale, and her heart began to beat violently. She knew nothing of death, and was not fearless of it. Her inveterate calm failed her in thus being brought near it. "I will go away," she said. And she would have gone, but at that moment there arose a sound of voices in the inner room--Mrs. Briarley's and Janey's, and above theirs Granny Dixon's, brokenly, and yet with what seemed terrible loudness in the hush of the house. "Bring her i' here!" she was saying. "Bring her i' here an' mak' her--do it!" And then out came Mrs. Briarley, looking fagged and harassed.