"Madam," said I, deeply moved, "I apprehended as much. If I can do you any service, be sure that the will shall not be wanting. Pray, tell me what shall I do?" "Well," returned the poor creature, quickly, "Marmaduke Heath should be killed at once, that is all important. We have been thinking of nothing else, my husband and I. But perhaps you have done it already." (How I shrank from that random shaft.) "If so, I have no further desire except to get out. If I could only be once more in the greenwood, my hair would reassume its natural colour. That is why Mr. Gilmore is so careful to keep me thus locked up. If my husband only saw me with my black hair again--it reached to the ground, sir--matters would be very different. I think I have already observed that it is not customary to watch a lady while she is partaking of refreshment." With that, she once more seated herself at the table, with her back to me; and judging thereby that my presence was distasteful to her, and having no notion of how I could possibly give her any aid, I withdrew from the sad scene. I had not, however, gone many steps, when she called me back again through the iron bars. "Mr. Meredith," said she, "you arrived somewhat unexpectedly. It is to that circumstance alone, I beg to repeat, that you must attribute the absence of bracelets. My very best regards to all your family. Sinnamenta, you know--Lady Heath." CHAPTER II. HARLEY STREET. While I was thus passing my time at Fairburn, at work with my tutor, in rides rendered doubly lonesome by contrast with those made so enjoyable by the company of my friend, or in rambles about the solitary Chase, the course of true love was running more smoothly in Harley Street than it is fabled to do. During each of my visits there, I had perceived its silent increase even more clearly than those between whom it was growing up into the perfect flower, leaf by leaf, and bud by bud; they had tended it together--Marmaduke and Lucy--until it was well nigh in blossom, and yet they had not said to one another, and perhaps not even to themselves, "Why, this is surely Love." Mr. Gerard had watched it, not displeased, for he had found the young man all that my heart had foretold that he would; Mr. Clint had seen it, and won by the strong sense, as much as by the beauty of the gentle girl, forgot the revolutionary stock of which she came. This, thought he, is the wife for Marmaduke Heath; tender, but yet determined; dutiful, but indisposed to submit to unauthorized dictation; as fearless as kind. In her, once wedded to this young man, so morbid, so sensitive, so yielding, Sir Massingberd would find, if it should be necessary, not only a foe, resolute herself, but as firm as steel for him whom she had dowered with her love. What Marmaduke's nature wanted, hers would supply. The keen lawyer foresaw for that unhappy family, whose interests he and his had had in keeping so many scores of years, a future such as had never been promised before.