letters for years. But not to hear from
him! To think I have ruined him, and that he repents! Do they want to
take him from me? Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I've had no one to
speak out my heart to all this time, and I cannot, cannot help crying,
Mrs. Berry!"

Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she heard from Lucy's
lips, and she was herself full of dire apprehension; but it was never
this excellent creature's system to be miserable in company. The sight
of a sorrow that was not positive, and could not refer to proof, set her
resolutely the other way.

"Fiddle-faddle," she said. "I'd like to see him repent! He won't find
anywheres a beauty like his own dear little wife, and he know it. Now,
look you here, my dear--you blessed weepin' pet--the man that could see
ye with that hair of yours there in ruins, and he backed by the law, and
not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed for life, he ain't got much
man in him, I say; and no one can say that of my babe! I was sayin',
look here, to comfort ye--oh, why, to be sure he've got some surprise
for ye. And so've I, my lamb! Hark, now! His father've come to town,
like a good reasonable man at last, to u-nite ye both, and bring your
bodies together, as your hearts is, for everlastin'. Now ain't that
news?"

"Oh!" cried Lucy, "that takes my last hope away. I thought he had gone
to his father." She burst into fresh tears.

Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed.

"Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested.

"Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!"

"Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sieh a man as that. He's a regular
meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey. Well, so hark you here.
I says to myself, that knows him--for I did think my babe was in his
natural nest--I says, the bar'net'll never write for you both to come
up and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch you up. For there was
your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your husband to go away from ye one
hour in a young marriage. It's dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong, and it's
only to be righted by your obeyin' of me, as I commands it: for I has my
fits, though I am a soft 'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy tomorrow--or
the next to it."

Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her self-inflicted
martyrdom, and glad to give herself up to somebody else's guidance
utterly.

"But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?"

"'Cause, 'cause--who can tell the why of men, my dear? But that he love
ye f