be any longer ignored, not only a shock, but a wrong, a guilt, a horror. Is it not like signing his sentence, agreeing that he is to die? Lady Markham felt as if she had consented to the worst that could happen when these visions of the future drifted across her mind. Meanwhile who can describe the sudden dreariness of the house upon which in full sunshine of youth and enjoyment this blight came? The boys wished themselves at school--could there be any stronger evidence of the gloom around them?--the girls grew sad and cross, and cried for nothing at all. Fairfax lingered on, not knowing what to do, afraid to trouble the anxious ladies even by proposing to go away, obliterating himself as much as he could, though doing everything that Paul, had he been there, would have been expected to do. Paul did not come till a week after, though he was written to every day--but in that week a great many things had happened. For one thing Lady Markham had seen and spoken with the stranger who was living at the Markham Arms in the village, and who had introduced himself to the children as a relation. She had heard nothing of Mr. Gus except that one mention of him by little Bell on the night of the return, and that had made no great impression on her mind. It had been immediately before the recurrence of Sir William’s faint, which had naturally occupied all her thoughts, and how could it be supposed that Lady Markham would remember a thing of such small importance? It surprised her much to meet in the hall that strange little figure in light, loose clothes, standing hat in hand, as she went from one room to another. Sir William then had been but a few days ill, and Lady Markham had hitherto resolutely kept herself from all those drifting shadows of fear. It was one of the days when she had come to “make a call” on her children. Sir William was asleep, and she persuaded herself that he was better, she had come down, as she said, to tell them the good news; but her smile as she told it was so tremulous, that little Bell, whose nerves had got entirely out of order, began to cry. And then they all cried together for a minute, and were a little eased by it. Alice protested that she was crying for joy because papa was better, and that it was very silly, but she could not help it; and Lady Markham had all the brightness of tears in her eyes as she came out into the hall on her way back to the sick-room; and lo, there before her in the hall, stood the little gentleman, bowing, with his hat in his hand. “I think you must have heard of me, Lady Markham,” he said. She looked at him, with a kind of horror that a stranger should be able to find and detain her--she who ought to be by her husband’s bedside. In her capacity of nurse it seemed almost as great a crime to intercept her as it would be to disturb Sir William; but she was too courteous to express her horror.