Then Edith made a sign to him to follow her, and led him downstairs again to the little sitting-room. "Papa is a long way off; he is in France. He must be telegraphed for." And she took a writing-case and wrote an address. Now, although there was a telegraph from Wenderholme to Ogden's Mill at Shayton, there was none from Shayton to Sootythorn, which was the nearest town of importance. So the best way appeared to be for Jacob to ride off at once with the despatch to the station, which was ten miles off. "And you must telegraph for mamma at the same time." And Edith wrote Lady Helena's address. A little delay occurred now, because Jacob's horse had to be sent for to Wenderholme Hall. Edith went upstairs, and soon came down again with rather favorable news. The syncope had not lasted long, and the patient seemed to rally from it somewhat more easily than she had done from the preceding ones. "Miss Stanburne!" said Jacob, "will you give me a word of explanation? You were hard and unkind the last time we spoke to each other." "I did very wrong. I thought I was sacrificing myself for your good. I told you nothing but lies." Half an hour since Miss Smethurst was within a hair's-breadth of being lady of Wenderholme; but her chances are over now, and she will not bring her fortune to this place--her coals to this Newcastle. As her late partner in the dance rides galloping, galloping through the wooded lanes to the telegraph station, his brain is full of other hopes, and of a far higher, though less brilliant, ambition. He will free himself from the Milend slavery, and work for independence--and for Edith! CHAPTER XIV. Mrs. Ogden's Authority. After the apparition of Mr. Prigley, the supper in the long gallery changed its character completely. Until he came it had been one of the merriest of festivals; after he went away, it became one of the dullest. A sense of uncomfortableness and embarrassment oppressed everybody present, and though many attempts were made to give the conversation something of its old liveliness, the guests soon became aware that for that time it was frozen beyond hope of recovery. It had been intended to resume the dancing after supper, but the dancing was not resumed, and the guests who intended to return to Shayton that night became suddenly impressed with so strong a sense of the distance of that place from Wenderholme, that all the pressing hospitality of the Ogdens availed not to retain them. Notwithstanding the Philistinism of Mrs. Ogden's character, and the external hardness which she had in common with most of her contemporaries in Shayton, she was not without heart; and when she heard that her son had turned old Mrs. Stanburne out of the Cottage, she both felt disapproval and expressed it. "Jacob," she said, "you shouldn't 'ave done so." And she repeated many a time to other people in the room, "Our Jacob shouldn't 'ave done so."