no more; he was old, strong,
authoritative. He made her follow him, and he bade her speak.

She followed, like the naughty child she now seemed even to herself; and
presently, in the library, beside those wretched books of hers, her old
law-books and her Peerages, reluctantly, stumblingly, sullenly, still
like the naughty child who would revolt but dare not, she spoke. And
when at last he let her go with her secret told, she ran up to her own
room and threw herself on the bed, sobbing. She had let herself in for
something dreadful. It was all her own fault--and she was very sorry.

Those were her two main conclusions.

Her whole behavior was probably just what the gentleman to whom she owed
her nickname would have expected and prophesied.

V

THE FIRST ROUND

Within the last few days there were ominous rumors afloat as to Lady
Tristram's health. It was known that she could see nobody and kept her
room; it was reported that the doctors (a specialist had been down from
town) were looking very grave; it was agreed that her constitution had
not the strength to support a prolonged strain. There was sympathy--the
neighborhood was proud in its way of Lady Tristram--and there was the
usual interest to which the prospect of a death and a succession gives
rise. They canvassed Harry's probable merits and demerits, asking how he
would fill the vacant throne, and, more particularly, whether he would
be likely to entertain freely. Lavish hospitality at Blent would mean
much to their neighborhood, and if it were indeed the case (as was now
prophesied in whispers) that Miss Iver of Fairholme was to be mistress
at the Hall, there would be nothing to prevent the hospitalities from
being as splendid as the mind of woman could conceive. There were
spinster ladies in small villas at Blentmouth who watched the illness
and the courtship as keenly as though they were to succeed the sick Lady
Tristram and to marry the new Lord. Yet a single garden-party in the
year would represent pretty accurately their personal stake in the
matter. If you live on crumbs, a good big crumb is not to be despised.

Harry Tristram was sorry that his mother must die and that he must lose
her; the confederates had become close friends, and nobody who knew her
intimately could help feeling that his life and even the world would be
poorer by the loss of a real, if not striking, individuality. But
neither he nor she thought of her death as the main thing