Bell had gone in very quietly, inspired by her mission, without pausing to think, and Marie had followed, as Marie always did. They went straight into the room where they were sure, they thought, of seeing their mother. It was in the recess, the west chamber, at the end of the drawing room, that they found her. But the circumstances did not seem very favourable to their plea. Lady Markham and Alice were reading a letter together, and Alice, it was very apparent, was crying over her mother’s shoulder, while Lady Markham was very pale, and her eyes red as if she had shed tears. “It is all over then,” she was saying as the children came in, folding the letter up to put it away. And Alice cried, and made no reply. This checked the straightforward fervour of Bell, who had walked straight into the room and halfway up its length before she discovered the state of affairs. “Mamma,” she had begun, “I have come from----” Then Bell paused, and cried, “Oh, mamma, dear, what is the matter?” with sudden alarm, stopping short in mid-career. “Nothing very much,” said Lady Markham, “nothing that we did not know before. What is it, Bell? You may tell me all the same. We must face it, you know. We must not allow ourselves to be overcome by it,” she said with a little quiver of her lip, and a smile which made the little girls inclined to cry too. “Oh mamma! I just came from--him,” Bell stopped short again, feeling as if involved in a sort of treason, and her pale little countenance flushed. Only then Lady Markham perceived the state in which the child was. “What have you been doing to yourself, Bell? You have hurt yourself. You have got a blow on the forehead. What was it? Let me look at you. You have been up in one of those trees.” “Oh mamma,” cried Bell, finding in this the very opportunity she wanted, “I fell, and I think I might have killed myself: but all at once, I don’t know where he came from, I never saw him coming, there was the--little gentleman! He picked me up, and he spoiled all his handkerchief bathing my forehead. He was very kind, he always was very kind--to us children,” said Bell. “Oh Bell! how can you speak of that odious little man? how can you bother mamma about him? We have heard a great deal too much about him already,” cried Alice with an indignation that dried her tears.