here is going on so well that I am with you for a day or two
to-morrow,' he despatched the message to his wife.

Her case was now the gravest. He could not understand why she desired
to be in Bevisham. She must have had execrable dreams!--rank poison to
mothers.

However, her constitutional strength was great, and his pride in the
restoration of his House by her agency flourished anew, what with fair
weather and a favourable report from Dr. Gannet: The weather was most
propitious to the hopes of any soul bent on dispersing the shadows of
death, and to sportsmen. From the windows of his railway carriage
he beheld the happy sportsmen stalking afield. The birds whirred and
dropped just where he counted on their dropping. The smoke of the guns
threaded to dazzling silver in the sunshine. Say what poor old Nevil
will, or did say, previous to the sobering of his blood, where is there
a land like England? Everard rejoiced in his country temperately. Having
Nevil as well,--of which fact the report he was framing in his mind
to deliver to his wife assured him--he was rich. And you that put
yourselves forward for republicans and democrats, do you deny the
aristocracy of an oaklike man who is young upon the verge of eighty?

These were poetic flights, but he knew them not by name, and had not to
be ashamed of them.

Rosamund met him in the hall of the castle. 'You have not deceived me,
my dear lord,' she said, embracing him. 'You have done what you could
for me. The rest is for me to do.'

He reciprocated her embrace warmly, in commendation of her fresher good
looks.

She asked him, 'You have spoken to Dr. Shrapnel?'

He answered her, 'Twice.'

The word seemed quaint. She recollected that he was quaint.

He repeated, 'I spoke to him the first day I saw him, and the second.'

'We are so much indebted to him,' said Rosamund. 'His love of Nevil
surpasses ours. Poor man! poor man! At least we may now hope the blow
will be spared him which would have carried off his life with Nevil's. I
have later news of Nevil than you.'

'Good, of course?'

'Ah me! the pleasure of the absence of pain. He is not gone.'

Lord Romfrey liked her calm resignation.

'There's a Mr. Lydiard,' he said, 'a friend of Nevil's, and a friend of
Louise Devereux's.'

'Yes; we hear from him every four hours,' Rosamund rejoined. 'Mention
him to her before me.'

'That's exactly what I was going to tell you to do before me,' said her
husband, smili