"Well, yes, sir. My mistress decided upon it this morning, and I have just seen her off by train, with Sarah in attendance on her. Fact is, sir," added Perry, dropping his voice to a confidential key: "Hatch whispered to me that it was thought best the poor young lady should be out of the house while it is so troubled." "Troubled!" I repeated, half in scorn. "Why, yes, sir, you know what it is that's in it," rejoined Perry simply. "Mr. Close, too, he said Miss Annabel ought to be away from it just now." * * * * * When every hour of the day is occupied, time glides on insensibly. A week passed. I heard no news of or from Mrs. Brightman, and did not altogether care to intrude upon her, unbidden. But when the second week was also quickly passing, I determined to take an evening to go to Clapham. Dinner over, I was going downstairs, and met Leah coming up. "If anyone calls, I am out for the evening, Leah," I said to her. "And tell Watts when he comes in that I have left the _Law Times_ on the table for Mr. Lake. He must take it round to him." "Very well, sir." I was nearing the top of Essex Street when I met the postman. "Anything for me?" I inquired, for I had expected an important letter all day. "I think there is, sir," he replied, looking over his letters under the gas-lamp. "'Messrs. Brightman and Strange;' there it is, sir." I opened it by the same light. It was the expected letter, and required an immediate answer. So I returned, and letting myself in with my latch-key, went into the front office to write it. Leah had not heard me come in. She was upstairs, deep in one of the two favourite ballads which now appeared to comprise all her collection. During office hours Leah was quiet as a mute; but in the evening she would generally croon over one of these old songs in an undertone, if she thought that I was out and she had the house to herself. As she was thinking now, for she sang out in full key, but in a doleful, monotonous sort of chant. Her voice was still very sweet, but had lost much of the power of its earlier days. One of these two songs was a Scotch fragment, beginning "Woe's me, for my heart is breaking;" the other was "Barbara Allen." Fragmentary also, apparently; for as Leah sang it there appeared to be neither beginning nor ending to it. "And as she wandered up and down, She heard the bells a-ringing, And as they rang they seemed to say, 'Hard-hearted Barbara Allen.' "She turned her body round and round, She saw his corpse a-coming; 'Oh, put him down by this blade's side, That I may gaze upon him!' "The more she looked, the more she laughed, The further she went from him; Her friends they all cried out, 'For shame, Hard-hearted Barbara Allen!'"