y, and she,
being at bottom a practical woman, had seen the sense of his advice,
and had gone home comfortably in his carriage. Whether she took her
insane fancies home with her, or dropped them on the road, it mattered
very little to him, so that he never saw her again; and he did not
intend to see her again. If she came again to his house, he would
leave it and not return until she had gone; but he had no reason to
suppose that he would be forced into any such exceedingly disagreeable
action as this. He did not believe she would ever come back. For,
unless she were really crazy--crazy--and in that case she ought to be
put in the lunatic asylum--she could not keep up, for any length of
time, the extraordinary and outrageous delusion that he would be
willing to renew the feelings that he had entertained for her in her
youth.

Mr Brandon rode until nearly dark, for it took a good while to free
his mind from the effects of the excitements and torments of that day.
But, when he entered the house and took his seat in his library chair
by the fire, he had almost regained his usual composed and well
satisfied frame of mind.

Then, through the quietly opened door, came Mrs Keswick, and
stealthily stepping towards him in the fitful light of the blazing
logs, she put her hand on his arm and said: "Dear Robert, how glad I
am to see you back!"

The next morning, about ten o'clock, Mrs Keswick sent her eighteenth
or twentieth message to Mr Brandon, who had shut himself up in his
room since a little before supper-time on the previous evening. The
message was sent by Peggy, and she was instructed to shout it outside
of her master's door until he took notice of it. Its purport was that
it was necessary that Mrs Keswick should go home to-day, and that her
horse was harnessed and she was now ready to go, but that she could
not think of leaving until she had seen Mr Brandon again. She would
therefore wait until he was ready to come down.

Mr Brandon looked out of the window and saw the spring-wagon at the
outside of the broad stile, with Plez standing at the sorrel's head.
He remembered that the venerable demon had said, at the first, that
she intended to stay but one night, and he could but believe that she
was now really going. Knowing her as he did, however, he was very well
aware that if she had said she would not leave until she had seen him,
she would stay in his house for a year, unless he sooner went down to
her; therefore