Miss Blake had stood all the while with in-drawn lips. It was a habit of hers to show it in her lips when displeased. Seeing always the doors open in the day-time, no suspicion of the truth crossed her. She believed that what she had disclosed to Lucy was no more to her than the idle wind, once Sir Karl had made good his own false cause. A question was running through Miss Blake's mind now--had been in it more or less since Mrs. Cleeve came: should she, or should she not, tell that lady what she knew' She had deliberated upon it; she had set herself to argue the point, for and against; and yet, down deep in her heart from the first had laid the innate conviction that she should tell. In the interests of religion and morality, she told herself that she ought not to keep silence; for the suppression of iniquity and deceit, she was bound to speak. Had Lucy but taken up the matter rightly, there would have been no necessity for her to have again interfered: neither should she have done it. But Lucy had set her communication at naught: and therefore, in Miss Blake's judgment, the obligation was laid upon her. Why--how could she, who was only second to the Rev. Guy Cattacomb in the management and worship at St. Jerome's, and might have been called his lay curate; who prostrated herself there in prayer ever so many times a day, to the edification and example of Foxwood--how could she dare to hold cognizance of a mine of evil, and not strive to put an end to it, and bring it home to its enactors? Every time she went to that holy shrine, St. Jerome's, every time she came back from it, its sacred dust, as may be said, hallowing her shoes, she had to pass those iniquitous gates, and was forced into the undesirable thoughts connected with them! If Miss Blake had wavered before, she fully made her mind up now; now, as she stood there in the chamber, the conversation dying away on her ears. Aglaé was attending to the shoulder-knots; Lucy was passive under the maid's hands; and Mrs. Cleeve had wandered into the little intermediate sitting-room. No longer a dressing-room; Lucy had given it up as such when she changed her chamber. She had some books and work and her desk there now, and sat there whenever she could. Miss Blake stood on, gazing from the window and perfecting her resolution. She thought she was but acting in the strict line of wholesome duty, just as disinterestedly as the Archbishop of Canterbury might have done: and she would have been very much shocked had anybody told her she was only actuated by a desire of taking vengeance on Karl Andinnian. She wanted to bring home a little confusion to him; she hoped to see the young lady at the Maze turned out of the village amidst an escorting flourish of ironical drums and shrieking fifes, leaving Foxwood Court to its peace. But Miss Blake was in no hurry to speak: she must watch her opportunity.