rance here, in my own parish! She is staying at the inn,
accompanied by a plausible-looking man, who passes as her brother. What
this audacious proceeding really means--unless it marks a new step in
the conspiracy against Allan, taken under new advice--is, of course,
more than I can yet find out.

"My own idea is, that they have recognized the impossibility of getting
at Allan, without finding me (or you) as an obstacle in their way; and
that they are going to make a virtue of necessity by boldly trying
to open their communications through me. The man looks capable of any
stretch of audacity; and both he and the woman had the impudence to bow
when I met them in the village half an hour since. They have been making
inquiries already about Allan's mother here, where her exemplary life
may set their closest scrutiny at defiance. If they will only attempt to
extort money, as the price of the woman's silence on the subject of poor
Mrs. Armadale's conduct in Madeira at the time of her marriage, they
will find me well prepared for them beforehand. I have written by this
post to my lawyers to send a competent man to assist me, and he will
stay at the rectory, in any character which he thinks it safest to
assume under present circumstances.

"You shall hear what happens in the next day or two.

"Always truly yours, DECIMUS BROCK."

XII. THE CLOUDING OF THE SKY.

Nine days had passed, and the tenth day was nearly at an end, since Miss
Gwilt and her pupil had taken their morning walk in the cottage garden.

The night was overcast. Since sunset, there had been signs in the sky
from which the popular forecast had predicted rain. The reception-rooms
at the great house were all empty and dark. Allan was away, passing
the evening with the Milroys; and Midwinter was waiting his return--not
where Midwinter usually waited, among the books in the library, but in
the little back room which Allan's mother had inhabited in the last days
of her residence at Thorpe Ambrose.

Nothing had been taken away, but much had been added to the room, since
Midwinter had first seen it. The books which Mrs. Armadale had left
behind her, the furniture, the old matting on the floor, the old paper
on the walls, were all undisturbed. The statuette of Niobe still stood
on its bracket, and the French window still opened on the garden.
But now, to the relics left by the mother, were added the personal
possessions belonging to the son. The wall, bare h