“Ah! but what’s the use of that after I have had so many doses? It is no good telling me about it now, when the mischief is done,—after I have been taking it for I don’t know how long. Dear! dear! dear! and I regarded it as a mere commonplace powder, good for the complexion. I wonder whether it’s too late, or whether there’s any antidote?” Mrs. Robarts did not always quite understand her sister-in-law, and now she was a little at a loss. “I don’t think there’s much harm done yet on either side,” she said, cheerily. “Ah! you don’t know, Fanny. But I do think that if I die—as I shall—I feel I shall;—and if so, I do think it ought to go very hard with Lady Lufton. Why didn’t she label him ‘dangerous’ in time?” and then they went into the house and up to their own rooms. It was difficult for any one to understand Lucy’s state of mind at present, and it can hardly be said that she understood it herself. She felt that she had received a severe blow in having been thus made the subject of remark with reference to Lord Lufton. She knew that her pleasant evenings at Lufton Court were now over, and that she could not again talk to him in an unrestrained tone and without embarrassment. She had felt the air of the whole place to be very cold before her intimacy with him, and now it must be cold again. Two homes had been open to her, Framley Court and the Parsonage; and now, as far as comfort was concerned, she must confine herself to the latter. She could not again be comfortable in Lady Lufton’s drawing-room. But then she could not help asking herself whether Lady Lufton was not right. She had had courage enough, and presence of mind, to joke about the matter when her sister-in-law spoke to her, and yet she was quite aware that it was no joking matter. Lord Lufton had not absolutely made love to her, but he had latterly spoken to her in a manner which she knew was not compatible with that ordinary comfortable masculine friendship with the idea of which she had once satisfied herself. Was not Fanny right when she said that intimate friendships of that nature were dangerous things? Yes, Lucy, very dangerous. Lucy, before she went to bed that night, had owned to herself that they were so; and lying there with sleepless eyes and a moist pillow, she was driven to confess that the label would in truth be now too late, that the caution had come to her after the poison had been swallowed. Was there any antidote? That was all that was left for her to consider. But, nevertheless, on the following morning she could appear quite at her ease. And when Mark had left the house after breakfast, she could still joke with Fanny as to Lady Lufton’s poison cupboard. CHAPTER XIV. MR. CRAWLEY OF HOGGLESTOCK.