oked down on Robert with a fatherly
concern.

'Eh, Mister Elsmere, but it's a fine place yur gawin' tu, they say.
Ye'll do weel there, sir--ye'll do weel. And as for the wark, sir, we'll
keep it oop--we'll not let the Deil mak' hay o' it, if we knaws it--the
auld leer!' he added, with a phraseology which did more honour to the
Calvinism of his blood than the philosophy of his training.

Lestrange came in, with a pale sharp face, and said little in his ten
minutes. But Robert divined in him a sort of repressed curiosity and
excitement akin to that of Voltaire turning his feverish eyes towards
_le grand secret_. 'You, who preached to us that consciousness, and God,
and the soul are the only realities--are you so sure of it now you are
dying, as you were in health? Are your courage, your certainty, what
they were?' These were the sort of questions that seemed to underlie the
man's spoken words.

There was something trying in it, but Robert did his best to put aside
his consciousness of it. He thanked him for his help in the past, and
implored him to stand by the young society and Mr. Edwardes.

'I shall hardly come back, Lestrange. But what does one man matter? One
soldier falls, another presses forward.'

The watchmaker rose, then paused a moment, a flush passing over him.

'We can't stand without you!' he said abruptly; then, seeing Robert's
look of distress, he seemed to cast about for something reassuring to
say, but could find nothing. Robert at last held out his hand with a
smile, and he went. He left Elsmere struggling with a pang of horrible
depression. In reality there was no man who worked harder at the New
Brotherhood during the months that followed than Lestrange. He worked
under perpetual protest from the _frondeur_ within him, but something
stung him on--on--till a habit had been formed which promises to be the
joy and salvation of his later life. Was it the haunting memory of that
thin figure--the hand clinging to the chair--the white appealing look?

Others came and went, till Catherine trembled for the consequences. She
herself took in Mrs. Richards and her children, comforting the sobbing
creatures afterwards with a calmness born of her own despair. Robson, in
the last stage himself, sent him a grimly characteristic message. 'I
shall solve the riddle, sir, before you. The doctor gives me three days.
For the first time in my life, I shall know what you are still guessing
at. May the blessing of one