"Why, my dear Lady Andinnian, how pale you look! It's the heat, I suppose." Lucy, half bewildered, her senses seeming to have gone she knew not whither, found herself shaking hands with the speaker, Miss Patchett: an elderly and eccentric lady who lived midway between the station and the village of Foxwood. Lucy mechanically asked her if she had come in the train. "Yes," answered Miss Patchett. "I've been to London to engage a housemaid. And I am tired to death, my dear, and the London streets were like fire. I wish I was at home without having to walk there." "Let the fly take you." "It's hardly worth while, my dear: it's not far. And it would be taking you out of the way." "Not many yards out of it. Step in, Miss Patchett." The old lady stepped in, Lucy following her; Giles taking his place by the driver. Miss Patchett was set down at her house, and then the horse's head was turned round in the direction of Foxwood Court. The old lady had talked incessantly; Lucy had comprehended nothing. St. Jerome's absurd little bell was being swayed and tinkled by Tom Pepp, but Lucy had not given it a second glance, although it was the first time she had had the gratification of seeing and hearing it. "I could almost have died, rather than it should have happened," she thought, her face burning now at the recollection of the encounter with Mrs. Grey, so mortifying to every good feeling within her. "How white she turned--how sharply she spoke--when they told her the fly was there for Lady Andinnian! And to think that I should have offered to set her down! To think it! Perhaps those parcels contained things that Karl bought for her in London!" The fly, bowling on, was nearing the Maze gate. Lucy's fascinated gaze was, in spite of herself, drawn to it. A middle-aged woman servant had opened it and was receiving the parcels from the porter. Mrs. Grey had her purse out, paying him. As she put the coin into his hand, she paused to look at Lady Andinnian. It was not a rude look, but one that seemed full of eager interest. Lucy turned her eyes the other way, and caught a full view of Mr. Smith, the agent. He was stretched out at one of his sitting-room windows, surveying the scene with undisguised curiosity. Lucy sank into the darkest corner of the fly, and flung her hands over her burning face. "Was any position in the world ever so painful as mine?" she cried with a rising sob. "How shall I live on, and bear it?" The fly clattered in by the lodge gate and drew up at the house. Hewitt appeared at the door, and Giles stood for his mistress to alight. "Has Sir Karl returned, Hewitt?" questioned Lucy. "Not yet, my lady." She stood for a moment in thought, then gave orders for the fly to wait, and went indoors. An idea had arisen that if she could get no comfort whispered to her, she should almost go out of her mind. Her aching heart was yearning for it.