“Yes, but we want the other too, for the child’s sake,” said Marjory. She was more excited than the dying girl. She began to picture to herself disagreeable questions which Mr. Charles might ask, suggestions he might make. He was kind, but he had a different code of civility for “a country lass” from that which would rule his utterances to a lady. Perhaps in general he was not wrong in this; but Isabell was not a mere country lass as he supposed. With a sense of anxiety which was stronger than seemed called for by the occasion, Marjory stood aside, and allowed her uncle to approach. Then, for the first time, she noticed the homely pair who accompanied him, and saw Agnes, flushed with excitement, standing back in a corner watching them, forcibly keeping herself silent, but with an eagerness of eye and look which meant something. The old mother, too, was gazing at them with open mouth and eyes, saying at intervals, “Lord preserve us a’!” with mingled anxiety and surprise. This curious consciousness, on the part of the spectators, disclosed to Marjory that the strange visitors were not mere neighbours, as she had thought. And she, too, gazed at them eagerly--but ignorantly--without being any the wiser. Their real identity strangely enough never occurred to her. She had associated the finding of them with Fanshawe, and with him alone. It is, perhaps, too much to say that she did not want them to be found except by him; but certainly she had set her heart upon his accomplishment of this commission. It would be, she felt, a proof to heaven and earth that his real character was very different from his reputation--that he was a true friend--a man to trust and rely upon. She had “no object” (as she said to herself) in her wish to prove this--but yet abstractly she did wish to prove it. It was a foregone conclusion in her own mind. Therefore she had no desire that these should be the missing witnesses, and the idea did not occur to her, eager and anxious as her interest was. “Yes, yes, May, my dear,” said Mr. Charles. “I see, this is the young woman. How are you to-day? I hear you are not so well as could be wished. My niece, Miss Heriot, has told me a great deal about you. I am not wanting to be uncivil, my poor girl; but I cannot conceal from you that your story is very unlikely--very unlikely; without strong proof I cannot see how it could ever be believed.”