The morning sun was chasing the dew from the grass: and the lawn at the Maze, glittering so brightly in the welcome rays, told no tales of the strange feet that had, unbidden and unsuspected, trodden it in the night. Mrs. Grey, looking wondrously pretty and delicate in her white morning gown, with her golden hair as bright as the sunshine, sat at breakfast in a little room whose window was beside the entrance porch. Her baby, wide awake, but quiet and good, lay covered up on the sofa in its night-dress. She was talking to it as she eat her breakfast, and the wide-open little eyes were turned to her as if it understood. "Good little darling! Sweet, gentle baby! It does not scream and fight as other babies do: no never. It is mamma's own precious treasure--and mamma is going to dress it presently and put on its pretty worked robe. Oh, baby, baby!" she broke off, her mood changing, and the distress at her heart rising to the surface, above the momentary make-believe dalliance, "if we could but be at rest as others are! We should be happier than the day has hours in it." The accession of illness, attacking Sir Adam on the previous day, the great risk they ran in calling in a doctor to him, had shaken poor Rose's equanimity to the centre. She strove to be brave always, for his sake; she had been in the habit of keeping-in as well as she could the signs of the dread that ever lay upon her, and she had done so in a degree yesterday. But in the evening when the doctor had safely gone, and the day and its troubles were over, she had yielded to a sudden fit of hysterical weeping. Her husband came into the room in the midst of it. He partly soothed, partly scolded her: where was the use of fretting, he asked; better take matters as they came. With almost convulsive efforts she swallowed her sobs and dried her eyes; and turned the tables on him by gently reproaching him with getting up, when Dr. Cavendish had peremptorily enjoined him to stay in bed. Sir Adam laughed at that: saying he felt none the worse for his fainting fit, or whatever it was, and was not going to lie abed for all the doctors in Christendom. The cheery morning sun is a great restorer--a gladdening comforter: and Rose felt its influence. During her sleepless night, nothing could be more disheartening, nothing more gloomy than the view pervading her mind: but this morning, with that glorious light from heaven shining on all things, she and the earth alike revived under it. One great thing she felt incessant thankfulness for; it was a real mercy--that that miserable visitation of the detective and his policemen had not been delayed to the day of Sir Adam's illness. Had they caught him in bed, no earthly power, she thought, could have saved him. Karl, stealing over for a few minutes at night, to see for himself what this alarm of increased illness of his brother's could mean, had warned them both to be prepared, for he had reason to fancy the search might be repeated.