Meanwhile, during this bold escapade of Miss Blake's, Lady Andinnian had gone out on a very different expedition. It could not be said that Lucy had no acquaintance whatever at Foxwood before she came to it. She knew the vicar's eldest daughter, Margaret, who had occasionally stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Blake at Winchester: the two clergymen were acquainted, having been at college together. On this morning Lucy had started to see Miss Sumnor; walking alone, for Karl was busy. The church, a very pretty one, with a tapering spire, stood in its churchyard, just through the village. The vicarage joined it: a nice house, with a verandah running along the front; a good garden and some glebe land. On a couch in a shaded room, lay a lady of some thirty, or more, years of age; her face thin, with upright lines between the eyebrows, telling of long-standing trouble or pain, perhaps of both; her hands busy with some needle-work. Lady Andinnian, who had not given her name, but simply asked to see Miss Sumnor, was shown in. She did not recognize her at the first moment. "Margaret! It cannot be you." Margaret Sumnor smiled her sweet, patient smile, and held Lady Andinnian's hand in hers. "Yes it is, Lucy--if I may presume still to call you so. You find me changed. Worn and aged." "It is true," candidly avowed Lucy, in the shock to her feelings. "You look altogether different. And yet, it is not three years since we parted. Mrs. Blake used to tell me you were ill, and had to lie down a great deal." "I lie here always, Lucy. Getting off only at night to go to my bed in the next room. Now and then, if I am particularly well, they draw me across the garden to church in a hand-chair: but that is very seldom. Sit down. Here, close to me." "And what is the matter with you?" "It has to do with the spine, my dear. A bright young girl like you need not be troubled with the complication of particulars. The worst of it is, Lucy, that I shall be as I am for life." "Oh Margaret!" Miss Sumnor raised her work again and set a few stitches, as if determined not to give way to any kind of emotion. Lady Andinnian's face wore quite a frightened look. "_Surely_ not for always, Margaret!" "I believe so. The doctors say so. Papa went to the expense of having a very clever man down from London; but he only confirmed what Mr. Moore had feared." "Then, Margaret, I think it was a cruel thing to let you know it. Hope and good spirits go so far to help recovery, no matter what the illness may be. Did the doctors tell you?" "They told my father, not me. I learnt it through--through a sort of accident, Lucy," added Miss Sumnor: who would not explain that it was through the carelessness--to call it by a light name--of her stepmother. "After all, it is best that I should know it. I see it is now, if I did not at the time." "How it must have tried you!"