dread your showing it to
Florry, and if she asks for it, say you sent it to Henderson--isn't
that your lawyer's name?--in London, and told him to supply you with the
means of replying to it."

Like a fly in a cobweb, Miss Grainger saw herself entangled wherever she
turned, and though perhaps in her secret heart she regretted having ever
called Calvert to her counsels, the thing was now done and could not be
undone.

CHAPTER XII. DARKER AND DARKER.

THERE was an unusual depression at the villa each had his or her
own load of anxiety, and each felt that an atmosphere of gloom was
thickening around, and, without being able to say why or wherefore, that
dark days were coming.

"Among your letters this morning was there none from the vicar, Mr.
Calvert?" asked Miss Grainger, as he sat smoking his morning cigar under
the porch of the cottage.

"No," said he, carelessly. "The post brought me nothing of any interest
A few reproaches from my friends about not writing, and relieving
their anxieties about this unhappy business. They had it that I was
killed--beyond that, nothing."

"But we ought to have heard from old Mr. Loyd before this. Strange, too,
Joseph has not written."

"Stranger if he had! The very mention of my name as a referee in his
affairs will make him very cautious with his pen."

"She is so fretted," sighed the old lady.

"I see she is, and I see she suspects, also, that you have taken me in
your counsels. We are not as good friends as we were some time back."

"She really likes you, though--I assure you she does, Mr. Calvert. It
was but t'other day she said, 'What would have become of us all this
time back if Mad Harry--you know your nickname--if Mad Harry had not
been here?'"

"That's not liking! That is merely the expression of a weak gratitude
towards the person who helps to tide over a dreary interval. You might
feel it for the old priest who played piquet with you, or the Spitz
terrier that accompanied you in your walks.

"Oh, it's far more than that. She is constantly talking of your great
abilities--how you might be this, that and t'other. That, with scarcely
an effort, you can master any subject, and without any effort at all
always make yourself more agreeable than anyone else."

"Joseph excepted?"

"No, she didn't even except him; on the contrary, she said, 'It was
unfortunate for him to be exposed to such a dazzling rivalry--that your
animal spirits alone would always beat him