“David,” said she, in a panting whisper, “oh, no, you cannot let me go like this! Some day you’ll thank me for having saved you ... for you are saved a second time.” She could not keep the taunt out of her mouth. “After all, I am your only sister, and this is the last time we shall ever meet. I am dying!” “My only sister died to me ten years ago,” said David. His tone was quite unmoved; and he added, almost in the same breath: “There is a high wind rising, you had better wrap your cloak over your mouth.” She struck away in fury the hand that held hers, ran down the steps alone, and sprang into the carriage, where, seizing the child, she held him up at the window in a sort of vengeful mute defiance that, louder than any shriek, spoke her secret meaning: “Fool, you shall not keep this hated flesh and blood from ruling in your place some day!” As the wheels began to crunch round in the gravel, she suddenly became aware of a dull grey face and black eyes looking upon her out of the shade of the opposite seat. It was not her maid! A shudder ran through her frame. She stared without speaking. But Margery’s voice was silky as ever: “Asking your pardon, my lady, I made so bold. Mamselle Josephine is in the other coach. Sir David has dismissed me. But I knew your ladyship would offer me a home and welcome, seeing that it is my devotion to your ladyship that’s lost me my bread and my station in my old age. I made so bold,” repeated Mrs. Nutmeg, and the veiled threat was all the more awful to the listener because of the unemotional tone, “knowing your ladyship’s heart as I know it.” “Mamma,” cried the spoilt child, “let me go! I don’t like your cold hands!” And thus, with Nemesis by her side, Lady Lochore left Bindon-Cheveral for the last time, and drove through the gathering storm on her speedy way to die Valley of the Shadows. Ellinor took her last look at her father’s face and laid the wreath of herbs at his feet and a sprig of his Euphrosinum, fatal plant! upon his breast. Madam Tutterville, in wifely solicitude for her Horatio’s unphilosophic depression, had insisted on his returning with her to the rectory. Without her, Ellinor could not remain at Bindon. But even had it not been so, to abide as David’s guest would have been the one thing to render her trouble unbearable. And there was nothing in the last cruel details that precede the returning of earth to earth to make her desire to linger in the death-chamber. She, therefore, accepted her aunt Sophia’s offer of hospitality. Had she not been all absorbed in her own troubles the lady’s altered manner, and the rebuffingly Christian spirit in which the invitation was offered, might have struck her painfully. But she was past noticing such things.