“Your brother Jim sets sail for America on Tuesday next, and we all hope if once he gets out in Canada with Uncle Pete he’ll do well. But you know what the boy always was about you. It was ever Clare first, and the rest of us nowhere. He won’t budge a foot without seeing you, and giving a good-by kiss to his little sister, for all she’s a great lady now. Now, my girl, it’s hard enough to have had never a sight of you for them three years, save now and again as you’ve drove past in your carriage, and that one time you contrived to slip off to the old cottage for half an hour. I’m hungering to speak to my beautiful girl. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ve thought I seen a sad look on your face of late. It’s wicked and unnatural for Sir Philip to part flesh and blood, and as to us not being gentlefolks, he should have thought of that afore he took ye. What you say he threatened about shooting as poachers any on us as come within his property, that’s mere tall talk. What harm to anybody will it do for your father and brother to see you for ten minutes or so, and give you a good-by kiss, and tell you how dear you are to us still? So, my girl, to-morrow night, at any time between nine and eleven, do you slip out to the shrubbery at the back of the paddock. If it rains hard we shan’t expect you, but if it’s fine, seeing as the gray wolf is away, we know you’ll come, my pretty, to your loving brother, and your old father.” Dr. Netherbridge read the letter carefully, and returned it to Lady Cranstoun. He was beginning to understand several things which had puzzled him. One point was very clear--Sir Philip Cranstoun had married beneath him, and had forbidden his young wife from communicating in any way with her relations. “Did you go?” the doctor asked. She supported herself on her elbow, and spoke in quick, gasping tones: