ulk of a mansion and deposited in a wood. The front room was
filled with nicknacks, curious work-tables, filigree baskets, twisted
brackets supporting statuettes, in which the grotesque in every case
ruled the design; love-birds, in gilt cages; French bronzes, wonderful
boxes, needlework of strange patterns, and other attractive objects. The
apartment was one of those which seem to laugh in a visitor's face and on
closer examination express frivolity more distinctly than by words.

'Miss Gruchette is here to keep the fowls?' said Ethelberta, in a puzzled
tone, after a survey.

'Yes. But they don't keep her.'

Ethelberta did not attempt to understand, and ceased to occupy her mind
with the matter. They came from the cottage to the door, where she gave
the woman a trifling sum, and turned to leave. But footsteps were at
that moment to be heard beating among the leaves on the other side of the
hollies, and Ethelberta waited till the walkers should have passed. The
voices of two men reached herself and the woman as they stood. They were
close to the house, yet screened from it by the holly-bushes, when one
could be heard to say distinctly, as if with his face turned to the
cottage--

'Lady Mountclere gone for good?'

'I suppose so. Ha-ha! So come, so go.'

The speakers passed on, their backs becoming visible through the opening.
They appeared to be woodmen.

'What Lady Mountclere do they mean?' said Ethelberta.

The woman blushed. 'They meant Miss Gruchette.'

'Oh--a nickname.'

'Yes.'

'Why?'

The woman whispered why in a story of about two minutes' length.
Ethelberta turned pale.

'Is she going to return?' she inquired, in a thin hard voice.

'Yes; next week. You know her, m'm?'

'No. I am a stranger.'

'So much the better. I may tell you, then, that an old tale is flying
about the neighbourhood--that Lord Mountclere was privately married to
another woman, at Knollsea, this morning early. Can it be true?'

'I believe it to be true.'

'And that she is of no family?'

'Of no family.'

'Indeed. Then the Lord only knows what will become of the poor thing.
There will be murder between 'em.'

'Between whom?'

'Her and the lady who lives here. She won't budge an inch--not she!'

Ethelberta moved aside. A shade seemed to overspread the world, the sky,
the trees, and the objects in the foreground. She kept her face away
from the woman, and, whispering a reply to her Good-morning, pa