ken with the baroness in the present
terrible emergency--and that he would privately return to the house
between eight and nine o'clock that evening, ready to act as Miss Welwyn
wished, and to afford her and her sister any aid and protection of which
they might stand in need. With these words he bowed, and noiselessly
quitted the room.

For the first few awful minutes after she was left alone, Miss Welwyn
sat helpless and speechless; utterly numbed in heart, and mind, and
body--then a sort of instinct (she was incapable of thinking) seemed
to urge her to conceal the fearful news from her sister as long as
possible. She ran upstairs to Rosamond's sitting-room, and called
through the door (for she dared not trust herself in her sister's
presence) that the visitor had come on some troublesome business from
their late father's lawyers, and that she was going to shut herself up,
and write some long letters in connection with that business. After
she had got into her own room, she was never sensible of how time was
passing--never conscious of any feeling within her, except a baseless,
helpless hope that the French police might yet be proved to have made
some terrible mistake--until she heard a violent shower of rain come
on a little after sunset. The noise of the rain, and the freshness it
brought with it in the air, seemed to awaken her as if from a painful
and a fearful sleep. The power of reflection returned to her; her
heart heaved and bounded with an overwhelming terror, as the thought of
Rosamond came back vividly to it; her memory recurred despairingly to
the long-past day of her mother's death, and to the farewell promise she
had made by her mother's bedside. She burst into an hysterical passion
of weeping that seemed to be tearing her to pieces. In the midst of it
she heard the clatter of a horse's hoofs in the courtyard, and knew that
Rosamond's husband had come back.

Dipping her handkerchief in cold water, and passing it over her eyes as
she left the room, she instantly hastened to her sister.

Fortunately the daylight was fading in the old-fashioned chamber that
Rosamond occupied. Before they could say two words to each other,
Franval was in the room. He seemed violently irritated; said that he had
waited for the arrival of the mail--that the missing newspaper had not
come by it--that he had got wet through--that he felt a shivering fit
coming on--and that he believed he had caught a violent cold. His wife
anx