Harry went. Mrs. Middleton had moved a little farther away, and stood with her back toward Percival and one hand pressed against the wall to steady herself. Her first question was an unexpected one: "Isn't the wind getting up?" Her eyes were frightened and her voice betrayed her anxiety. "I don't know--not much, I think." He was taken by surprise, and hesitated a little. "It is: tell me the truth." "I am--I will," he stammered. "I haven't thought about it. There is a pleasant little breeze, such as often comes in the evening. I don't really think there's any more." "It isn't rising, then?" "Wait a minute," said Hardwicke, and hurried off. He did not in the least understand his errand, but it was enough for him that Mrs. Middleton wanted to know. If she had asked him the depth of water in the well or the number of trees on the Priory farm, he would have rushed away with the same eagerness to satisfy her. His voice was heard in the porch, alternating with deeper and less carefully restrained tones. Then there was a sound of steps on the gravel-path. Presently he came back. Mrs. Middleton's attitude was unchanged, except that she had drawn a little closer to the wall. But though she had never looked over her shoulder, she was uneasily conscious of the young man half sitting, half lying in the window-seat behind her. "Greenwell says it won't be anything," Hardwicke announced. "The glass has been slowly going up all day yesterday and to-day, and it is rising still. He believes we have got a real change in the weather, and that it will keep fine for some time." "Thank God!" said Mrs. Middleton. "Do you think I'm very mad?" "Not I," Harry answered in a "theirs-not-to-reason-why" manner. "A week or two ago," she said, "my poor darling was talking about dying, as you young folks will talk, and she said she hoped she should not die in the night, when the wind was howling round the house. A bitter winter night would be worst of all, she said. It won't be _that_ but I fancied the wind was getting up, and it frightened me to think how one would hear it moaning in this old place. It is only a fancy, of course, but she might have thought of it again lying there." Hardwicke could not have put it into words, but the fancy came to him too of Sissy's soul flying out into the windy waste of air. "Of course it is nothing--it is nonsense," said Mrs. Middleton. "But if it might be, as she said, when it is warm and light!--if it might be!" She stopped with a catching in her voice. Harry, in his matter-of-fact way, offered consolation: "Dear Mrs. Middleton, the sun will rise by four, and Greenwell says there won't be any wind." "Yes, yes! And she may not remember." "I hope you have been taking some rest," he ventured to say after a brief silence. "Yes. I was lying down this afternoon, and Sarah will take part of the night." She paused, and spoke again in a still lower tone: "Couldn't you persuade him to go away?" "Mr. Thorne?"