"I never said so!" Graves exclaimed. "We've groped home as best we could, for the rain and mist put out the lights, and as to the lamps, the glass is so thick with damp you can scarce see a spark in them." While Graves was speaking, Griselda had gone wearily upstairs. Her cloak was saturated with rain, and as she unfastened her _caleche_ the masses of her hair fell back. At the top of the first flight she stopped. "Graves! ask if a messenger has brought a letter for me." "No," Mrs. Abbott said, answering--"no. Not a soul has been near the house since you left it." "No letter!--no letter!" Griselda murmured; and then, when she reached her room, she threw aside her cloak and seated herself, with folded hands, staring out into the embers of the fire with a look in her face which made Graves say, as she hastened towards her: "My dear! my poor child! don't look like that. It is over now--and a mercy too. There will never be any need to tell--no one need know. It's safe with me, and no one else need know. Come, let me help you to bed before I am wanted elsewhere. Come!" "I am not going to bed," Griselda said. "I must wait till he comes or sends again." "We'll, the gentleman won't send at this time of night, that's certain! Come, they will be back at any minute now! Let me put you to bed. I declare," said Graves, shuddering, "a change in the weather like this is enough to give one rheumatism! I don't call the Bath climate so wonderful--frost one day, thaw and rain the next!" Graves made up the fire, and then, finding Griselda quite determined to sit up, she left her to fetch some refreshment, wisely thinking that to urge her against her will was hopeless just then. "She will come round, poor child! It is a dreadful shock! I almost wish I'd told her last night; but I hadn't the courage to do it. I make no doubt the Lord is leading her to Himself by a rough path. But I don't like that look in her face; it is not natural. She ought to cry; tears are always softening to grief. Not that one can call it grief to lose a father like him!" No, it was not grief, but it was deep pity; and it was shame, and soreness of heart, and wounded pride. Then that letter she had written in the fulness of her first joy--that letter, by which she cast herself upon Leslie Travers, and confided to him her trouble about Sir Maxwell. He had never answered it. He had come to the house, it is true, but he had been sent away. Hours had gone by since, and he made no sign. What could she think but that he had looked with an unfavourable eye upon that outpouring of her full heart--perhaps thought her reference to Sir Maxwell's hateful addresses unmaidenly, unwomanly? Griselda went over all this again and again, sitting as Graves had left her, her head resting against the back of a high Chippendale chair, her feet on the brass fender, her hands clasped, and the wealth of her beautiful hair covering her as with a mantle.