'Yes, Miss,' answered Tamar, whose eyes were fixed in a sort of fascination, full on those of her mistress. 'If Master Stanley should call, he is to do just as he pleases. You used to be accurate, Tamar; may I depend upon you?' 'Yes, Ma'am, certainly.' 'If I thought you'd fail me now, Tamar, I should _never_ come back. Good-night, Tamar. There--don't bless me. Good-night.' When the light wheels of the dog-cart gritted on the mill-road before the little garden gate of Redman's Farm, the tall slender figure of Rachel Lake was dimly visible, standing cloaked and waiting by it. Silently she handed her little black leather bag to her brother, and then there was a pause. He stretched his hand to help her up. In a tone that was icy and bitter, she said-- 'To save myself I would not do it. You deserve no love from me--you've showed me none--_never_, Stanley; and yet I'm going to give the most desperate proof of love that ever sister gave--all for your sake; and it's guilt, guilt, but my _fate_, and I'll go, and you'll never thank me; that's all.' In a moment more she sat beside him; and silent as the dead in Charon's boat, away they glided toward the 'White House which lay upon the high road to Dollington. The sleepy clerk that night in the Dollington station stamped two first-class tickets for London, one of which was for a gentleman, and the other for a cloaked lady, with a very thick veil, who stood outside on the platform; and almost immediately after the scream of the engine was heard piercing the deep tatting, the Cyclopean red lamps glared nearer and nearer, and the palpitating monster, so stupendous and so docile, came smoothly to a stand-still before the trelliswork and hollyhocks of that pretty station. CHAPTER XIX. THE TARN IN THE PARK. Next morning Stanley Lake, at breakfast with the lawyer, said-- 'A pretty room this is. That bow window is worth all the pictures in Brandon. To my eye there is no scenery so sweet as this, at least to breakfast by. I don't love your crags and peaks and sombre grandeur, nor yet the fat, flat luxuriance of our other counties. These undulations, and all that splendid timber, and the glorious ruins on that hillock over there! How many beautiful ruins that picturesque old fellow Cromwell has left us.' 'You don't eat your breakfast, though,' said the attorney, with a charming smile of reproach. 'Ah, thank you; I'm a bad breakfaster; that is,' said Stanley, recollecting that he had made some very creditable meals at the same table, 'when I smoke so late as I did last night.' 'You drove Mr. Wylder to Dollington?' 'Yes; he's gone to town, he says--yes, the mail train--to get some diamonds for Miss Brandon--a present--that ought to have come the day before yesterday. He says they'll never have them in time unless he goes and blows them up. Are you in his secrets at all?' 'Something in his confidence, I should hope,' said Mr. Larkin, in rather a lofty and reserved way.