Perhaps a dozen people had recognised in Carton Standish the man with whom the Clare Tristram of twenty-two years before had run away, although no one had come forward to state that the man who had been found guilty of the murder of Mr. Westwood was the same person. Agnes knew enough of the world to be well aware of the fact that not only in Brackenshire but in every county in England the question “Who is she?” would be asked, so soon as it became known that Claude Westwood had got married. Claude Westwood, the African explorer, was the man on whom all eyes had been turned for some months, and he could not hope to keep his marriage a secret even if he desired to do so. It would be outside the bounds of possibility that no one should recognise in the name Clare Tristram the name of the girl who, twenty-two years before, had married a man named Carton Standish; so that even if Agnes had kept her secret it would eventually have been revealed to Claude, when it would be too late to prevent a catastrophe. “If I had wished to be revenged I would have let him marry and find out afterwards that she was the daughter of Carton Standish,” cried Agnes, as she lay awake through the hours of that long night. She felt that she had some reason for self-reproach, but not because she had sought to be revenged upon the man who had so cruelly treated her. Only for an hour had the thought of revenge been in her heart, and it had not been sweet to her, but bitter. Once she rose from her bed and stole softly into Clare's room. The girl was lying asleep; and the light in the room was not too dim to allow of Agnes's seeing that her pillow was wet with tears. Still, she was now asleep and unconscious of any trouble. It was Agnes who had been unable to find comfort in the oblivion of sleep, and she returned to her bed to lie waiting for the dawn. It stole between the spaces of the blinds, the grey dawn of the winter's day---the cheerless dawn that drew nigh without the herald of a bird's song--a dawn that was more cheerless than night. She rose and went to the window, looking out over the valley that she knew so well. She saw in the far distance the splendid woods of Branksome Abbey, Sir Percival Hope's home, and somehow she felt comforted by letting her eyes rest upon the grey side of the Abbey wall which was visible above the trees. She had a feeling that Sir Percival might be trusted to bring happiness into her life. From the first day on which he had come to Brackenshire she had trusted him. She had gone to him in her emergencies--first when she had wished to have Lizzie Dangan taken care of, and afterwards when she had wanted that large sum of money which had saved the Westwoods' bank. He had shown himself upon both those occasions to be worthy of her trust, and then--then--