since his death."

Mrs. Hilliard was not looking at the governess, or she might have been
surprised at the nervous restlessness and agitation of her manner, as
she listened to these very commonplace remarks.

"Lady Thetford was very much attached to her husband, then?" Mrs.
Weymore said, her voice tremulous.

"Ah! that she was! She must have been, for his death nearly killed her.
It was sudden enough, and shocking enough, goodness knows! I shall never
forget that dreadful night. This is the old banqueting-hall, Mrs.
Weymore, the largest and dreariest room in the house."

Mrs. Weymore, trembling very much, either with cold or that
unaccountable nervousness of hers, hardly looked round at the vast
wilderness of a room.

"You were with the late Sir Noel then, when he died?"

"Yes, until my lady came. Ah! it was a dreadful thing. He had taken her
to a ball, and riding home his horse threw him. We sent for the doctor
and my lady at once; and when she came, all white and scared-like, he
sent us out of the room. He was as calm and sensible as you or me, but
he seemed to have something on his mind. My lady was shut up with him
for about three hours, and then we went in--Dr. Gale and me. I shall
never forget that sad sight. Poor Sir Noel was dead, and she was
kneeling beside him in her ball-dress, like somebody turned to stone. I
spoke to her, and she looked up at me, and then fell back in my arms in
a fainting fit. Are you cold, Mrs. Weymore, that you shake so?"

"No--yes--it is this desolate room, I think," the governess answered,
hardly able to speak.

"It _is_ desolate. Come, I'll show you the billiard-room, and then we'll
go up stairs to the room Sir Noel died in. Everything remains just as it
was--no one has ever slept there since. If you only knew, Mrs. Weymore,
what a sad time it was; but you do know, poor dear, you have lost a
husband yourself."

The governess flung up her hands before her face with a suppressed sob,
so full of anguish that the housekeeper stared at her aghast. Almost as
quickly she recovered herself again.

"Don't mind me," she said, in a choking voice, "I can't help it. You
don't know what I suffered--what I still suffer. Oh, pray, don't mind
me."

"Certainly not, my dear," said Mrs. Hilliard, thinking inwardly the
governess was a very odd person indeed.

They looked at the billiard-room, where the tables stood, dusty and
disused, and the balls lay idly by.

"I don't know when it wil