“It is not necessary to promise,” said Lady Wynde, “but to please you, I promise!” Sir Harold’s keen blue eyes, full of anguish, rested in a long steady gaze upon that false handsome face, and the solemnity of his countenance increased. “You will be Neva’s guardian, if I die,” he said, in a broken voice. “I trust you absolutely. God do unto you, Octavia, as you do unto my orphan child!” How those words rang in the ears of Lady Wynde long afterward! Sir Harold gave her a last embrace, and dashed down the stairs and sprang into the carriage. Lady Wynde watched him with tearless eyes as he drove down the avenue. When he had disappeared from her sight, she said to herself: “Of course I could have done nothing to put an end to Sir Harold’s life this morning. I only hope he will die in India--to save me the trouble of--of doing anything when he gets back!” Sir Harold proceeded to Canterbury with all speed. On arriving, he proceeded directly to his solicitor’s, had a new will drawn up, constituting Lady Wynde his daughter’s personal guardian, and making Neva his sole heiress in the event of her brother’s death, Lady Wynde having been sufficiently provided for by her marriage settlements. The will duly signed and witnessed, Sir Harold hastened to the station, catching the train for Dover. He crossed to Calais by the first boat, and went on to Marseilles, by way of Paris, without stopping even to see his daughter. He was not only in time to get passage by the _Messageries Imperiales_ steamer, but had an hour to spare. In this hour he wrote a long and very tender letter to his daughter, telling her of her brother’s illness, and hinting of the gloom that had settled down upon his own soul. He begged her if anything happened to him on this journey, to love her step-mother, and to obey her in all things, regarding Lady Wynde’s utterances as if they came from Sir Harold. He also wrote a note to his wife, and sent the two ashore to be posted by one of the agents of the company, just as the vessel weighed anchor for Suez. In thirty-five days after leaving home he was in the Indian hill country, and beside his dying son. Lady Wynde went out very little after her husband’s departure. She gave no more dinner parties, and behaved with such admirable discretion that her neighbors were full of praises of her. Although young, handsome and admired, presiding over one of the finest places in the county, with no one to direct or thwart her movements, the most censorious tongue could find nothing to condemn in her. The only recreation she allowed herself were her weekly visits to London, ostensibly to see Madame Elise, but as the ashen-eyed Artress always accompanied her, they excited no comment even in her own household. Easter drew near, and Lady Wynde wrote to her step-daughter that it would not be convenient to have her at Hawkhurst during the holidays, and ordered her to remain at her school.