His reply was to lean earnestly forward, awaiting her words, and she told him briefly of her grievous perplexity about the title-deeds.

"Then," he said, "you would wish for me to see the man and ascertain how he has disposed of them."

"I should be most grateful!"

"I will do my utmost. Perhaps I may not succeed immediately, as I believe visitors are not admitted every day, and he is said to be busy preparing his defence, but I will try, and let you know."

"Thanks, thanks! The doubt is terrible, for I know worry about it would distract my mother."

"I do not imagine," he said, "that much worse consequences than worry could ensue. But there are none more trying."

"Oh not none!"

"Do not let worry about this increase other ills," he said, kindly, "do not think about this again till you hear from me."

"Is that possible?"

"I should not have thought so, if I had not watched my uncle cast off troubles about his eye-sight and the keeping his living."

"Ah! but those were not of his own making."

"'There is a sparkle even in the darkest water.' That was a saying of his," said Alick, looking anxiously at her pale cheek and down-cast eye.

"Not when they are turbid."

"They will clear," he said, and smiled with a look of encouraging hope that again cheered her in spite of herself. "Meantime remember that in any way I can help you, it will be the greatest favour--" he checked himself as he observed the exceeding languor and lassitude apparent in her whole person, and only said, "My sister is too much at the bottom of it for me not to feel it the greatest kindness to me to let me try to be of the slightest use. I believe I had better go now," as he rose and looked at her wistfully; "you are too much tired to talk."

"I believe I am," she said, almost reluctantly, "but thank you, this has done me good."

"And you are really getting better?"

"Yes, I believe so. Perhaps I may feel it when this terrible day is over."

What a comfort it would be, she said to herself, when he was gone, if we had but a near relation like him, who would act for the mother, instead of our being delivered up, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Cox. It would have been refreshing to have kept him now, if I could have done it without talking; it really seemed to keep the horrible thoughts in abeyance, to hear that wonderfully gentle tone! And how kind and soft the look was! I do feel stronger for it! Will it really be better after next week? Alas! that will have undone nothing.

Yet even this perception of a possibility of hope that there would be relief after the ordeal, was new to Rachel; and it soon gave way to that trying feature of illness, the insurmountable dread of the mere physical fatigue. The Dean of Avoncester, a kind old friend of Mrs. Curtis, had insisted on the mother and daughters coming to sleep at the Deanery, on the Tuesday night, and remaining till the day after the trial; but Rachel's imagination was not even as yet equal to the endurance of the long drive, far less of the formality of a visit. Lady Temple was likewise asked to the Deanery, but Conrade was still too ill for her to think of leaving him for more than the few needful hours of the trial; nor had Alison been able to do more than pay an occasional visit at her sister's window to exchange reports, and so absorbed was she in her boys and their mother, that it was quite an effort of recollection to keep up to Ermine's accounts of Colonel Keith's doings.

It was on the Monday afternoon, the first time she had ventured into the room, taking advantage of Rose having condescended to go out with the Temple nursery establishment, when she found Ermine's transparent face all alive with expectation. "He may come any time now," she said; "his coming to-day or to-morrow was to depend on his getting his business done on Saturday or not."

And in a few minutes' time the well-known knock was heard, and Ermine, with a look half arch half gay, surprised her sister by rising with the aid of the arm of her chair, and adjusting a crutch that had been leaning against it.

"Why Ermine! you could not bear the jarring of that crutch--"

"Five or six years ago, Ailie, when I was a much poorer creature," then as the door opened, "I would make you a curtsey, Colonel Keith, but I am afraid I can't quite do that," though still she moved nearer to meet him, but perhaps there was a look of helplessness which made her exultation piteous, for he responded with an exclamation of alarm, put out his arm to support her, and did not relax a frown of anxiety till he had placed her safe in her chair again, while she laughed perhaps a little less freely, and said, "See what it is to have had to shift for oneself!"

"You met me with your eyes the first time, Ermine, and I never missed anything."

"Well, I think it is hard not to have been more congratulated on my great achievement! I thought I should have had at least as much credit as Widdrington, my favourite hero and model."

"When you have an arm to support you it may be all very well, and I shall never stand it without." Then, as Ermine subsided, unprepared with a reply, "Well, Ailie, how are your boys?"

"Both much better, Francis nearly well."

"You have had a terrible time! And their mother?"

"Dearer and sweeter than ever," said Alison, with her voice trembling; "no one who has not seen her now can guess half what she is!"

"I hope she has not missed me. If this matter had not been so pressing, I could not have stayed away."

"The one message she always gave me was, that you were not to think of coming home; and, indeed, those dear boys were so good, that we managed very well without you."

"Yes, I had faith in your discipline, and I think that matters are in train against Edward comes. Of course there is no letter, or you would have told me."

"He will be coming himself," said Ermine, resolved against again expressing a doubt; while Alison added that he hated letter-writing.

"Nothing could be more satisfactory than Beauchamp's letter," added Colin. "He was so thoroughly convinced, that he immediately began to believe that he had trusted Edward all along, and had only been overruled."

"I dare say," said Ermine, laughing; "I can quite fancy honest Harry completely persuaded that he was Edward's champion, while Maddox was turning him round his finger."

"And such is his good faith, that I hope he will make Edward believe the same! I told you of his sending his love to you, and of his hopes that you would some day come and see the old place. He made his wife quite cordial."

Alison did not feel herself obliged to accept the message, and Ermine could freely say, "Poor Harry! I should like to see him again! He would be exactly the same, I dare say. And how does the old place look?"

"Just what I do not want you to see. They have found out that the Rectory is unhealthy, and stuck up a new bald house on the top of the hill; and the Hall is new furnished in colours that set one's teeth on edge. Nothing is like itself but Harry, and he only when you get him off duty--without his wife! I was glad to get away to Belfast."

"And there, judging from Julia's letter, they must have nearly devoured you."

"They were very hospitable. Your sister is not so very unlike you, Ermine?"

"Oh, Colin!" exclaimed Alison, with an indignation of which she became ashamed, and added, by way of making it better, "Perhaps not so very."

"She was very gracious to me," said Colin, smiling, "and we had much pleasant talk of you."

"Yes," said Ermine, "it will be a great pleasure to poor Julia to be allowed to take us up again, and you thought the doctor sufficiently convinced."

"More satisfactorily so than Harry, for he reasoned out the matter, and seems to me to have gone more by his impression that a man could not be so imprudent as Edward in good faith than by Maddox's representation."

"That is true," said Alison, "he held out till Edward refused to come home, and then nothing would make him listen to a word on his behalf."

"And it will be so again," thought Ermine, with a throb at her heart.

Then she asked, "Did you see whether there was a letter for you at home?"

"Yes, I looked in, and found only this, which I have only glanced at, from Bessie."

"From Paris?"

"Yes, they come home immediately after Easter. 'Your brother is resolved I should be presented, and submit to the whole season in style; after which he says I may judge for myself.' What people will do for pretty young wives! Poor Mary's most brilliant season was a winter at Edinburgh; and it must be his doing more than hers, for she goes on: 'Is it not very hard to be precluded all this time from playing the chieftainess in the halls of my forefathers? I shall have to run down to your Gowanbrae to refresh myself, and see what you are all about, for I cannot get the fragment of a letter from Alick; and I met an Avoncestrian the other day, who told me that the whole county was in a state of excitement about the F. U. etc.; that every one believed that the fascinating landscape-painter was on the high road to winning one of the joint-heiresses; but that Lady Temple--the most incredible part of the story--had blown up the whole affair, made her way into the penetralia of the asylum, and rescued two female 'prentices, so nearly whipped to death that it took an infinitesimal quantity of Rachel's homoeopathy to demolish one entirely, and that the virtuous public was highly indignant that there was no inquest nor trial for manslaughter; but that it was certain that Rachel had been extremely ill ever since.

Poor Rachel, there must be some grain of truth in all this, but one would like to be able to contradict it. I wrote to ask Alick the rights of the story, but he has not vouchsafed me a line of reply; and I should take it as very kind in you to let me know whether he is in the land of the living or gone to Edinburgh--as I hear is to be the lot of the Highlanders--or pining for the uncroquetable lawn, to which I always told him he had an eye.'"