It is not always that an individual’s temper, as far as regards its principal characteristics, may be seen in the face; but in Dame Shedlock’s, it was written distinctly. Her complexion was dark, and, though she might be in her fiftieth year, her hair, where it was visible, was still dark also, yet not unmingled with grey. Her eyes were of a deep brown, and amply answered, by their quiet and subdued light, for the evenness of her disposition, and the docility of her nature. The impression they created was confirmed, on a closer survey, by her other features, which, though not of a classic mould, were regular and harmonious, and were more charming from their sweet melancholy, chastened by the soft light of resignation and endurance, than they would have been in the full glow of mere youth and beauty. Such was the person who, a few minutes previous to the period that closed our last chapter, while Shedlock and Sir Walter Raleigh were yet in the avenue, passed into the pleasure-ground that surrounded Bethleham Hall, and proceeded down a secluded side-walk. For some few minutes she walked leisurely along, without sustaining any interruption, or, indeed, encountering or seeing a single individual. But after a while, she came to a spot where, pushed out by a small shrubbery, the path swept close up to the park-fence, in which there was a blind gate, communicating with the lane beyond. Though she was within a pace or two of the gate, she did not observe that it was slightly ajar; and it was not till she came abreast of it, and, thinking she heard a rustling noise in that quarter, turned an inquiring gaze thitherwards, that the fact incurred her notice. Her gaze was still turned on the door, when it was suddenly pushed open, and a man, whom it had served as a place of ambush, presented himself at the aperture. She gave a slight start as she glanced in the man’s face, and then turned an anxious gaze around her, as if to ascertain, by this hasty survey, whether any other person was within sight. But the view was, from the curve in the walk, very limited, and in neither direction extended more than a dozen yards, when it was lost in the sweep of the adjacent shrubbery. So far as her glance reached, however, there was no person in view, and, satisfied of this, she turned her eye on the man again. “Bernard Gray, what wouldst thou?” she inquired. “I knew thou wouldst come this way,” answered the person addressed, and who, it will be inferred, was no other than our friend Bernard, “and I waited here to see thee. Since I was with thee last, I have been in talk with young Clifford, and warned him to be wary.” “And he has gone?” said Dame Shedlock. “That has he not,” replied Bernard, “though he is to go, an’ no ill happen him, this even.” Dame Shedlock turned pale on hearing these words. “An’ he be not gone already,” she said, “he may not go at all. Thou shouldst have urged him to depart incontinently.”