He had his back to her as he spoke, having turned to take up his overcoat which lay on the children's form. Mary replied that she had not heard anything. "Sir Richard Blake-Gordon's dead." A great thump seemed to strike her heart. It stood still, and then went bounding on again. "His death was very sudden," continued the lawyer, still occupied with his coat. "He fell down in a fit and never spoke again. Never recovered consciousness at all, Sir William tells me." Mary lifted her eyes. Mr. Knivett had turned back to her then. "Sir--William?" she stammered, feeling confused in all ways. The title was spoken too suddenly: it sounded strange to her; unnatural. "It was he who came in and detained me: he had to see me upon an urgent matter. He is sadly cut up." Hardly giving himself time to shake her hand, Mr. Knivett, bustled away. In passing the parlour-door, Sister Mildred was coming out of it. She and the lawyer were great friends, though they very rarely saw each other. He could not stay longer then, he said; and she and Mary went with him to the door, and walked with him across the waste ground to the gate. The storm had entirely passed: it was the same evening, told of in the last chapter, when Miss Hallet took a trip to the blacksmith's: the sky was clear again and bright with a few stars. The storm had been one of those violent ones when the rain seems to descend in pitiless torrents. A great gutter of water was streaming along in front of the Grey Nunnery on the other side the low bank that divided the path from the road. Mr. Knivett's horse and gig waited in the road just out of the running water. The night was warm and still, balmy almost as in summer, though it was getting late in the year. Ten o'clock was striking from the Nunnery clock. "I shall be over again in a day or two," said Mr. Knivett to the ladies, as he took a leap from the bank over the gutter, and the groom held the apron aside for him to get up. The two ladies stood at the gate and watched him drive off. It was, indeed, a lovely night now, all around quiet and tranquil. Mary, with a sobbing sigh, said a word to Sister Mildred of the cause that had brought the lawyer over; but the good Sister heard, as the French say, à tort et à travers. Now, of all queer items of news, what should the ladies have been pouring into the ex-Superior's ear during Miss Castlemaine's absence from the parlour, but the unsatisfactory rumours just now beginning to circulate through the village to the detriment of Jane Hallet. Her mind full of this, no wonder Sister Mildred was more deaf than need have been to Mary's words. "It is a very extraordinary thing, my dear," she responded to Mary; "and I think she must have lost her senses."