"Oh, yes," said Lucilla, with another little laugh--"_everything_--and how he used to know Mrs Mortimer, and all about it. He has no secrets from me," said Miss Marjoribanks. She caught Mr Cavendish's eye at the moment, who was casting a stealthy glance in her direction, and who looked cowed and silenced and unquiet to the most miserable degree; and she gave him a little reassuring nod, which the Archdeacon watched with an inward groan. What was he to do? He could not publicly expose the man who had just received this mark of confidence from his young hostess, who knew everything. Perhaps it was one of the greatest trials of Christian patience and fortitude which the Archdeacon, who was not great, as he himself would have said, in the passive virtues, had undergone in all the course of his life. He was so utterly subdued and confounded that he ate his soup, and never found out what kind of soup it was. That is, he consumed it in large spoonfuls without being aware, by way of occupying his energies and filling up the time. "You cannot mean it," he said, after a pause. "You must be imperfectly informed. At least let me talk to your father. You must hear all the rights of the story. If you will let me speak half a dozen words to--to that person, Miss Marjoribanks, I am sure he will leave the place; he will give up any claim----" "Oh, yes, please talk to him," said Miss Marjoribanks, "it will be so nice to see you friends. Nothing would make me so happy. You know I have heard all about it from you and from Mrs Mortimer already, so I am sure there cannot be much more to tell; and as for papa, he is very fond of Mr Cavendish," said Lucilla, with an imperceptible elevation of her voice. "Is it _he_ whom you call Mr Cavendish?" said the Archdeacon. He too had raised his voice without knowing it, and several people looked up, who were not at the moment engaged in active conversation of their own. The owner of that name, for his part, also turned his face towards the upper end of the table. He was sick of the suspense and continued endurance, and by this time was ready to rush upon his fate. "Did any one call me?" he said; and there was a little pause, and the company in general fixed its regard upon those three people with a sense that something remarkable was going on among them, though it could not tell what or why.