re.'

'We do not see clearly when we are trying to deceive,' said Rosamund.
'My letters! my letters!'

Lord Romfrey went to fetch them. They were intact in his desk. His wife,
then, had actually been reading the facts through a wall! For he was
convinced of Mrs. Devereux's fidelity, as well as of the colonel's and
Cecilia's. He was not a man to be disobeyed: nor was his wife the woman
to court or to acquiesce in trifling acts of disobedience to him. He
received the impression, consequently, that this matter of the visit to
Nevil was one in which the poor loving soul might be allowed to guide
him, singular as the intensity of her love of Nevil Beauchamp was,
considering that they were not of kindred blood.

He endeavoured to tone her mind for the sadder items in Miss Denham's
letters.

'Oh!' said Rosamund, 'what if I shed the "screaming eyedrops," as you
call them? They will not hurt me, but relieve. I was sure I should
someday envy that girl! If he dies she will have nursed him and had the
last of him.'

'He's not going to die!' said Everard powerfully.

'We must be prepared. These letters will do that for me. I have written
out the hours of your trains. Stanton will attend on you. I have
directed him to telegraph to the Dolphin in Bevisham for rooms for the
night: that is to-morrow night. To-night you sleep at your hotel in
London, which will be ready to receive you, and is more comfortable than
the empty house. Stanton takes wine, madeira and claret, and other small
necessaries. If Nevil should be very unwell, you will not leave him
immediately. I shall look to the supplies. You will telegraph to me
twice a day, and write once. We lunch at half-past twelve, so that you
may hit the twenty-minutes-to-two o'clock train. And now I go to see
that the packing is done.'

She carried off her letters to her bedroom, where she fell upon the bed,
shutting her eyelids hard before she could suffer her eyes to be the
intermediaries of that fever-chamber in Bevisham and her bursting heart.
But she had not positively deceived her husband in the reassurance she
had given him by her collectedness and by the precise directions she had
issued for his comforts, indicating a mind so much more at ease. She was
firmer to meet the peril of her beloved: and being indeed, when thrown
on her internal resources, one among the brave women of earth, though
also one who required a lift from circumstances to take her stand calmly
fronting a