t that Rachel
thus derived. Any bustle or resumption of former habits was a trial to
her shattered nerves, and brought back the dreadful haunted nights. The
first sight of Conrade, still looking thin and delicate, quite overset
her; a drive on the Avoncester road renewed all she had felt on the way
thither; three or four morning visitors coming in on her unexpectedly,
made the whole morbid sense of eyes staring at her recur all night, and
when the London solicitor came down about the settlements, she shrank
in such a painful though still submissive way, from the sight of a
stranger, far more from the semblance of a dinner party, that the mother
yielded, and let her remain in her sitting-room.

"May I come in?" said Alick, knocking at the door. "I have something to
tell you."

"What, Alick! Not Mr. Williams come?"

"Nothing so good. In fact I doubt if you will think it good at all. I
have been consulting this same solicitor about the title-deeds; that
cheese you let fall, you know," he added, stroking her hand, and
speaking so gently that the very irony was rather pleasant.

"Oh, it is very bad."

"Now wouldn't you like to hear it was so bad that I should have to sell
out, and go to the diggings to make it up?"

"Now, Alick, if it were not for your sake, you know I should like--"

"I know you would; but you see, unfortunately, it was not a cheese at
all, only a wooden block that the fox ran away with. Lawyers don't put
people's title-deeds into such dangerous keeping, the true cheese is
safe locked up in a tin-box in Mr. Martin's chambers in London."

"Then what did I give Mauleverer?"

"A copy kept for reference down here." Rachel hid her face.

"There, I knew you would think it no good news, and it is just a
thunder-clap to me. All you wanted me for was to defend the mother and
make up to the charity, and now there's no use in me," he said in a
disconsolate tone.

"Oh, Alick, Alick, why am I so foolish?"

"Never mind; I took care Martin should not know it. Nobody is aware
of the little affair but our two selves; and I will take care the fox
learns the worth of his prize. Only now, Rachel, answer me, is there any
use left for me still?"

"You should not ask me such things, Alick, you know it all too well."

"Not so well that I don't want to hear it. But I had more to say. This
Martin is a man of very different calibre from old Cox, with a head and
heart in London charities and churches, and it had struc