Dorcas, pale as marble, sighing deeply again and again, her rich black hair drenched in water, which trickled over her cheeks, like the tears and moisture of agony, was recovering. There was water spilt on the table, and the fragments of a broken glass upon the floor. The moment Rachel saw her, she divined what had happened, and, gliding over, she placed her arm round her. 'You're better, darling. Open the window, Stanley. Send her maid.' 'Aye, send her maid,' cried Captain Lake to Larcom. 'This is your d--d work. A nice mess you have made of it among you.' 'Are you better, Dorcas?' said Rachel. 'Yes--much better. I'm glad, darling, I understand you now. Radie, kiss me.' Next morning, before early family prayers, while Mr. Jos. Larkin was locking the despatch box which was to accompany him to London Mr. Larcom arrived at the Lodge. He had a note for Mr. Larkin's hand, which he must himself deliver; and so he was shown into that gentleman's official cabinet, and received with the usual lofty kindness. 'Well, Mr. Larcom, pray sit down. And can I do anything for you, Mr. Larcom?' said the good attorney, waving his long hand toward a vacant chair. 'A note, Sir.' 'Oh, yes; very well.' And the tall attorney rose, and, facing the rural prospect at his window, with his back to Mr. Larcom, he read, with a faint smile, the few lines, in a delicate hand, consenting to the sale of Five Oaks. He had to look for a time at the distant prospect to allow his smile to subside, and to permit the conscious triumph which he knew beamed through his features to discharge itself and evaporate in the light and air before turning to Mr. Larcom, which he did with an air of sudden recollection. 'Ah--all right, I was forgetting; I must give you a line.' So he did, and hid away the note in his despatch-box, and said-- 'The family all quite well, I hope?' whereat Larcom shook his head. 'My mistress'--he always called her so, and Lake the capting--'has been takin' on hoffle, last night, whatever come betwixt 'em. She was fainted outright in her chair in the Dutch room; and he said it was the old gentleman--Old Flannels, we calls him, for shortness--but lor' bless you, she's too used to him to be frightened, and that's only a make-belief; and Miss Dipples, her maid, she says as how she was worse up stairs, and she's made up again with Miss Lake, which _she_ was very glad, no doubt, of the making friends, I do suppose; but it's a bin a bad row, and I suspeck amost he's used vilins.' 'Compulsion, I suppose; you mean constraint?' suggested Larkin, very curious. 'Well, that may be, Sir, but I amost suspeck she's been hurted somehow. She got them crying fits up stairs, you know; and the capting, he's hoffle bad-tempered this morning, and he never looked near her once, after his sister came; and he left them together, talking and crying, and he locked hisself into the library, like one as knowed he'd done something to be ashamed on, half the night.'