"And I--if I did not enlighten her, knowing what I know--should be countenancing and administering to the sin," she said aloud. "Good heavens! what a pit seems to be around us! may I be helped to do right!" Rising, and shaking the night dew from her hair, she passed upstairs to her own chamber. Lady Andinnian was moving about her dressing-room. Impulse induced Miss Blake to knock at the door. Not that she intended to speak then. "Are you undressing, Lucy?" she asked, an unconscious pity in her voice for the poor young wife. "Not yet, Theresa. Aglaé's coming up, though, I think. It was dull downstairs by myself, and I thought I might as well come on. I could not find you anywhere. I thought you must have gone to bed." "I was out of doors." "Were you? I called to you outside on the terrace, but no one answered." "Sir Karl is out, then?" "He is strolling about somewhere," replied Lucy. "He does not sleep well, and likes to take half an hour's stroll the last thing. It strikes me sometimes that Karl's not strong, Theresa: but I try to throw the fear off." Miss Blake drew in her lips, biting them to an enforced silence. She was burning to say what she could say, but knew it would be premature. "I will wish you goodnight, Lucy, my dear. I am tired, and--and out of sorts." "Good night, Theresa: dormez bien," was the gay answer. "To waste her love and solicitude upon _him!_" thought Miss Blake, as she stepped along the corridor with erect head and haughty brow. "I told Colonel Cleeve before the marriage that he was wild--little Dennet had said so--but I was put down. No wonder Sir Karl cannot spend his income on his home! he has other ways and means for it. Oh, how true are the words of holy writ! 'The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.'" CHAPTER XV. Revealed to Lady Andinnian. The morning sun had chased away the dew on the grass, but the hedge-rows were giving out their fragrance, and the lark and blackbird sang in the trees. Miss Blake was returning from early service at St. Jerome's; or, as St. Jerome people called it, Matins. In spite of the nearly sleepless night she had passed, Miss Blake looked well. Her superabundance of hair, freshly washed up with its cunning cosmetics and adorned to perfection, gleamed as if so many golden particles of dust were shining on it: her morning robe was of light muslin, and becoming as fashion could make it. It was very unusual for Miss Blake to get little sleep: she was of too equable a temperament to lie awake: but the previous night's revelation of iniquity had disturbed her in no common degree, and her head had ached when she rose. The headache was passing now, and she felt quite ready for breakfast. A task lay before her that day: the disclosure to Lady Andinnian. It was all cut and dried: how she should make it and when she should make it: even the very words of it were already framed.