She stole up and stood looking at him. Not a trace of fever lingered in his face now; his fine features looked wan and delicate. Her love for him was making itself heard just then. Cautiously she stooped to imprint a soft, silent kiss upon his cheek; and then another. She would have lifted her face then, and found she could not do so. His arm was round her in a trice, holding it there; his beautiful gray eyes had opened and were fixed on hers. "So you care for me a little bit yet, Blanche," he fondly whispered. "Better this than calling me hard names." She burst into tears. "I should care for you always, Archibald, if--if--I were sure you cared for me." "You may be very sure of _that_," he emphatically answered. "Let there be peace between us, at any rate, my dear wife. The clouds will pass away in time." On the Monday morning following, Lord and Lady Level departed for London. The peace, patched up between them, being honestly genuine and hopeful on his lordship's part, but doubtful on that of my lady. Still nothing had been said or done to lift the mystery which hung about Marshdale. CHAPTER III. ONE NIGHT IN ESSEX STREET. We go on now to the following year: and I, Charles Strange, take up the narrative again. * * * * * It has been said that the two rooms on the ground-floor of our house in Essex Street were chiefly given over to the clerks. I had a desk in the front office; the same desk that I had occupied as a boy; and I frequently sat at it now. Mr. Lennard's desk stood opposite to mine. On the first floor the large front room was furnished as a sitting-room. It was called Mr. Brightman's room, and there he received his clients. The back room was called my room; but Mr. Brightman had a desk in it, and I had another. His desk stood in the middle of the room before the hearthrug; mine was under the window. One fine Saturday afternoon in February, when it was getting near five o'clock, I was writing busily at my desk in this latter room, when Mr. Brightman came in. "Rather dark for you, is it not, Charles?" he remarked, as he stirred the fire and sat down in his arm-chair beside it. "Yes, sir; but I have almost finished." "What are you going to do with yourself to-morrow?" he presently asked, when I was putting up my parchments. "Nothing in particular, sir." I could not help sometimes retaining my old way of addressing him, as from clerk to master. "Last Sunday I was with my uncle Stillingfar." "Then you may as well come down to Clapham and dine with me. Mrs. Brightman is away for a day or two, and I shall be alone. Come in time for service."