“If you should see Mr. Vanley--the squire,” he began, “will you tell him, please----” He stopped, then shook his head. “No, I can send no message even to him. Things must take their course.” “And no message to--Mrs. Bradstone, sir?” inquired Mr. McAndrew, softly, and with the deepest respect. For a moment Faradeane’s face changed color, then he said, almost haughtily: “What message should I have to send to that lady?” Mr. McAndrew inclined his head. “Very good, sir,” he said. “I wish you good-day.” He tapped at the door, and as the warder opened it for him he looked over his shoulder. “I forgot to say that Mr. Bradstone asked me if there was anything he could do for you, Mr. Faradeane.” Faradeane’s face did not move a muscle. “Thank him; no,” he replied, firmly. Mr. McAndrew paused outside the closed door, with his hand to his mouth, looking hard at the stone floor; then he went out. As he was passing the office the governor tapped at the window. “Well?” he said, with an affectation of carelessness. “It isn’t well; it’s bad, colonel,” replied Mr. McAndrew, grimly, and with just a shade of annoyance and disappointment. “Your friend--Mr. Faradeane, the prisoner--is resolved upon giving himself away, as the Americans say, and I’m afraid he’ll be sorry when it’s too late.” With these oracular words Mr. McAndrew left the governor, and went to the hotel for his lunch. Several times during the consumption of a modest chop he paused with a morsel on his fork, and stared thoughtfully before him, as if he were struggling with some knotty problem; and after his lunch was finished and paid for, he lit a cigar and sauntered to Hawkwood Woods. He stood in the glade where the murder had been committed and Faradeane arrested, for several minutes, carefully noting the fallen tree, and indeed every inch of ground; then he walked back to the Grange, and back from the Grange to The Maples. Having surveyed that huge pile of red brick for some minutes, he made his way to the railway station and disappeared. CHAPTER XXVIII. A PRISONER AND HIS VISITOR. For more than a fortnight Olivia wandered in the valley of the shadow of death; then the crisis came and passed, and life still counted her among its subjects. But her recovery was so slow that another fortnight elapsed before, thin and pale, a bruised and broken lily, she was carried from her bedroom to her boudoir. During all the time of almost unendurable anxiety and suspense Bessie had scarcely left her. No nurse could have shown more devotion, no sister more tender and self-sacrificing love. Almost as thin and pale as Olivia, she watched beside her night and day, fully repaid if Olivia’s hand closed upon hers with a feeble pressure, or if she murmured gratefully her name.