You know how, at the first symptoms of a long illness, there falls upon the soul a premonitory sadness: the nurses and the doctors utter words of cheerfulness and hope: there is a loophole, there always is a loophole, until the climax and the turning-point. The patient hears, and tries to receive solace. But he knows better. He knows without being told that he stands on the threshold of the torture chamber: the door opens, he steps in, because he must: he will lie there and suffer--O Lord! how long? With such boding and gloom of soul--boding without words, gloom inarticulate--Leonard walked slowly homewards. It was about three in the afternoon that he mounted his stairs. In his mood, brooding over the new-found tragedies, it seemed quite natural, and a thing to be expected, that his cousin Mary Anne should be sitting on the stairs opposite his closed door. She rose timidly. “The man said he could not tell when you would come home, so I waited,” she explained. “He ought to have asked you to wait inside. Did you tell him who you were?” “No. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry to disturb your Sabbath calm.” “My---- Oh yes! Pray come in.” She obeyed, and sat down by the fire, glancing round the room curiously. In her lap lay a brown-paper parcel. “I thought you would come home to dinner after chapel,” she began, “so I got here about one.” She observed that his face showed some trouble, and she hesitated to go on. “Have you come to tell me of more family misfortunes?” he asked abruptly. “Oh,” she said, “I wish I hadn’t come. I told her you didn’t want it and you wouldn’t like it. Besides, what’s the use? It all happened so long ago. But granny would have it. I’ve brought you a book. She says you must read it. If you’d rather not have it, I will take it back again. Granny ought to know that you don’t want to be worried about these old things.” He pulled himself together, and assumed a mask of cheerfulness. “Nonsense!” he said. “Why should I not read about these old things which are to me so new? They belong to me as much as to you.” He observed the girl more narrowly while he spoke. Her words and her hesitation showed perception and feeling at least. As for her appearance, she was short and sturdy; her features were cast in one of the more common moulds. She wore a black cloth jacket and a skirt of dark green serge, a modest hat with black plumes nodding over her head in the hearse-like fashion of the day before yesterday, and her gloves were doubtful.