“Nay, let us _not_ think,” exclaimed her mistress with a shudder, “or I shall lose my wits. 'Would you have me picture what this house would be should _he_ come hither and claim me for his wife? Richard and he beneath the self-same roof, and he the master! Would Walter--though he herds with him, you say--brook this man as his equal? Would he not loathe him rather, and how soon, ah me! unlearn the love he owes to me--his wretched mother! I cannot hear to think of it, I tell you. Let us act; let us be doing something--something! How my brain whirls! Think for me, Mary--pray for me, for Heaven is deaf, alas, to my poor prayers!” But even while she spoke, the gracious tears began to fill the furrows in her cheeks, which until now had been dry throughout her talk; and having told her friend, the weight about her heart was lifted off a little, and the tightness round her brow was loosened by the blessed hand of sympathy. “I must write to him at once,” said Mary thoughtfully. “How fortunate that he did not leave Mirk until to-night. The two letters will now reach him at the same time. He cannot write in answer to the one which--which I wrote first--without having read the other; that will be something saved.” My Lady shook her head. “There is but little hope in that, I fear; for he himself has this night told me--yes, I saw him face to face, Mary, only I was thickly veiled, thank Heaven--he told me frankly (thinking I did not wish to lose my waiting-maid) that he should lay it to my charge if your reply was 'No,' and should not take it as the answer of your heart. How much more, if he gets a refusal coming so quickly upon the very heels of this acceptance, will he decline to believe it comes from your own self. More likely, it would cause him, reckless as he is, to do something rash and vengeful--perhaps to return hither on the instant, and---- O Mary, Mary, I would give five thousand pounds this day, if that would stop his coming to Mirk again!” “Would that _not_ stop him, mistress?” asked the waiting-maid with earnest gravity. “Five thousand pounds is a fortune, is it not?” “It would not stop _him_, Mary,” rejoined my Lady sadly. “Ralph Gavestone, even in his youth-time, never valued money a fillip when weighed against a whim; and now his will is more a law to him than ever. I have never known Resolve so fixed as I read it in his eyes this night. And if he guessed the truth, Mary--oh, if he did but dream that I, his lawful wife, for whom he had gladly laid his own life down, whose memory he has kept fresh and green when all else has withered, whose loss has been his ruin, was playing him false!--he said himself, that on his reckless soul 'twas like as not there might be murder some day--and, Mary, I do believe him.” White as the very moonbeams was my Lady's face, and the hand trembled which held the handkerchief she passed across her damp white brow.