“It came true!” she said. “The laird was visiting the poors’ house; they say he had just been calling something—I think it was a cup of tea—an ‘unnecessary luxury,’ when he was struck down in a fit, and there, on a pauper bed, he died quickly, and never saw face of his own folk again. All the strath was talking of it. But father did not live to see it,” she went on, “so it did him no good. And naught but false hearts and evil tongues had been with us in that last place, and I couldn’t bide there.” She added that with strong excitement. Lucy remembered Mrs. Bray’s hint about the unhappy love affair and the hated sister-in-law. “You must find it a great change from the heather hills to muddy London streets,” said Mrs. Challoner, hoping to divert Clementina’s moody mind into gentler channels. “You can’t give luck to a luckless man,” she answered rather enigmatically. Just then, the white dawn brightened into a sunbeam, and the little group arose, feeling that though still early, it was time they should separate and begin the tasks of the ordinary day. “She’s an uncanny creature, that,” whispered Tom to Lucy, as they left the kitchen. “Sometimes, while she was talking, I could not believe it was our Clementina. It was like another person taking possession of her.” “I noticed that, too,” was Lucy’s whispered reply. “And her story about the curse was awful!” “You don’t believe it was the curse which did the thing, do you?” asked Tom. Lucy hesitated. “No,” she answered, “not as the curse. But without that curse and the general impression that it was deserved, nobody would have seen any significance in the laird’s dying where he did. Had he been a kindly, good man, it would have been felt that his Master took him to Himself while he was doing his Master’s business among the poor. We must not forget that some terrible curses stand recorded in the Bible, possibly to let the evil and unjust see the feelings which they stir, and the fate they are making for themselves, and how it will be interpreted.” Clementina really seemed so much more communicative and even cheerful after those untimely confidences that Lucy, fearing that she had not been considerate enough to a lonely and possibly land-sick woman, tried more persistently than ever to draw her into some conversation. But Lucy was careful that the name of Charlie—Clementina’s unknown master—should never get into the talk. She dreaded associating it with Clementina’s sighs and shakings of the head. She had a nervous horror lest Clementina should make it a point about which visions and dreams and omens should crystallise. If this should happen, Lucy felt that she herself was not now strong enough to shake off the gloomy impressions.