best thing I can do is to get myself as soon as I can out of Sir Gus’s way.” This way of speaking of it was to both the ladies like turning the sword round in the wound. Where was it he meant to take himself, out of the way? They had neither of them any clue to Paul’s changed sentiments, and if he had vowed to go away while all was well with him, when he had fortune and splendour within reach, with those socialist emigrants whose very name was enough to alarm them, what would he do now when this horrible downfall and disappointment had loosed the bonds between him and his native country? A wild desire to call for help, even upon the least desirable of auxiliaries, upon Janet Spears herself, came to Lady Markham’s mind. If the girl could keep him at home, she felt herself able to receive even Janet to her heart. While their mother’s mind was thus occupied, the two little girls had languidly resumed their lessons. It is no reproach to the children to say that it was not very long before the impression made by their father’s death would have died out naturally, in an occasional tender recollection, or sudden burst of crying when something recalled him to their memory. It was not grief that made them languid, but the sense of something going on, a living agitation, and the shadow of a still greater disturbance to come. It was whispered vaguely between them that no doubt they would have to leave Markham, a thing which they sometimes felt like a deathblow and sometimes like a deliverance. When Bell and Marie thought of leaving their woods, their gardens, their “own house,” in which they had been born, the desolation of the thought overwhelmed them; but when, on the other hand, they thought of going away, perhaps to London, perhaps “abroad,” a thrill of guilty rapture ran through their bosoms. They had never come to such a pitch of wickedness as to say this to each other, but already in the rapid communion of the eyes each had guessed that the other thought there might be something to be said for such a possibility; and the idea made them restless, unable to settle to their work, and very trying to Mademoiselle, who, poor lady, had to put up with this reverberation of the troubles of the house without really having any share in them, or taking any very lively interest in these family concerns. Sometimes she had a headache, caused, as she said, by nothing but the continued disturbance of her nerves through their endless rustlings and changes. And when this headache got very bad and Mademoiselle betook herself to bed, it cannot be said that her pupils were sorry. They put their books away (having been brought up in the strictest habits of tidiness), and hastened out to their favourite haunts. The air and the movement stilled their nerves, which were as much at fault as those of Mademoiselle. They were seated on, or rather in, a tree near the fishpond, the favourite centre of all their games when the next great event occurred to them.