The party entered the spacious wainscoted hall, in which was an old wooden bench, on which, gladly, it seemed, the sick lady sat herself down. A great carved doorway opened upon a square second hall or lobby, through which the ray of the single candle glanced duskily, and touched the massive banisters of a broad staircase. This must have been the house of a very great man in its day, a Lord Chancellor, perhaps, one of those Hogarthian mansions in which such men as my Lord Squanderfield might have lived in the first George's days. "How could any man have been such an idiot," thought Sedley, filled with momentary wonder, "as to build a palace like this in such a place?" "Dear me! what a place--what a strange place!" whispered the elder lady, "where are we to go?" "Up-stairs, please'm," said the woman with a brass candlestick in her hand. "I hope there's fire, and more light, and--and proper comfort there?" "Oh! yes'm, please; everythink as you would like, please." "Come, dear," said the old lady tenderly, giving her arm to the languid figure resting in the hall. So guided and lighted by the servant they followed her up the great well staircase. CHAPTER II. A NEW VOICE. THE ladies ascended, led by the maid with the candle, and closely followed by their own servant, and our friend Tom Sedley brought up the rear, tugging the box and the bag with him. At the stair-head was a great gallery from which many doors opened. Tom Sedley halted close by the banister for orders, depositing his luggage beside him. The maid set the candle down upon a table, and opened one of these tall doors, through which he saw an angle of the apartment, a fire burning in the grate, and a pleasant splendour of candlelight; he saw that the floor was carpeted, and the windows curtained, and though there was disclosed but a corner of a large room, there were visible such pieces of furniture as indicated general comfort. In a large arm-chair, at the further side of the fire-place, sat the lady who had thrilled him with a sudden remembrance. She had withdrawn the shawl that hung in hood-like fashion over her head, and there was no longer a doubt. The Beatrice Cenci was there--his Guido--very pale, dying he thought her, with her white hands clasped, and her beautiful eyes turned upward in an agony of prayer. The old lady, Miss Sheckleton, came near, leaned over her, kissed her tenderly, and caressingly smoothed her rich chestnut hair over her temples, and talked gently in her ear, and raised her hand in both hers, and kissed it, and drawing a chair close to hers, she sat by her, murmuring in her ear with a countenance of such kindness and compassion, that Tom Sedley loved her for it.