t first, but
now I've the point of view. I'm afraid, however, that Bantling hasn't;
he may have some surprises. Oh, I understand Henrietta as well as if I
had made her!"

Isabel was by no means sure of this, but she abstained from expressing
further doubt, for she was disposed in these days to extend a great
charity to her cousin. One afternoon less than a week after Madame
Merle's departure she was seated in the library with a volume to
which her attention was not fastened. She had placed herself in a deep
window-bench, from which she looked out into the dull, damp park; and as
the library stood at right angles to the entrance-front of the house she
could see the doctor's brougham, which had been waiting for the last two
hours before the door. She was struck with his remaining so long, but at
last she saw him appear in the portico, stand a moment slowly drawing on
his gloves and looking at the knees of his horse, and then get into the
vehicle and roll away. Isabel kept her place for half an hour; there was
a great stillness in the house. It was so great that when she at last
heard a soft, slow step on the deep carpet of the room she was almost
startled by the sound. She turned quickly away from the window and saw
Ralph Touchett standing there with his hands still in his pockets, but
with a face absolutely void of its usual latent smile. She got up and
her movement and glance were a question.

"It's all over," said Ralph.

"Do you mean that my uncle...?" And Isabel stopped.

"My dear father died an hour ago."

"Ah, my poor Ralph!" she gently wailed, putting out her two hands to
him.

CHAPTER XX

Some fortnight after this Madame Merle drove up in a hansom cab to
the house in Winchester Square. As she descended from her vehicle she
observed, suspended between the dining-room windows, a large, neat,
wooden tablet, on whose fresh black ground were inscribed in white paint
the words--"This noble freehold mansion to be sold"; with the name of
the agent to whom application should be made. "They certainly lose no
time," said the visitor as, after sounding the big brass knocker, she
waited to be admitted; "it's a practical country!" And within the house,
as she ascended to the drawing-room, she perceived numerous signs of
abdication; pictures removed from the walls and placed upon sofas,
windows undraped and floors laid bare. Mrs. Touchett presently received
her and intimated in a few words that condolences might be