d
me he wished to speak to me there. It is an out-of-the-way place--a
small old room with very thick walls, and there is a double door, the
inner one of oak--I suppose he wished to guard against being overheard.

"There was a look in his face that frightened me; I saw he had something
dreadful to tell. He looked like a man on whom a lot had fallen to put
some one to death," said Lady Mardykes. "O, my poor Bale! my husband, my
husband! he knew what it would be to me."

Here she broke into the wildest weeping, and it was some time before she
resumed.

"He seemed very kind and very calm," she said at last; "he said but
little; and, I think, these were his words: 'I find, Janet, I have made
a great miscalculation--I thought my hour of danger had passed. We have
been many years together, but a parting must sooner or later be, and my
time has come.'

"I don't know what I said. I would not have so much minded--for I could
not have believed, if I had not seen him--but there was that in his look
and tone which no one could doubt.

"'I shall die before to-morrow morning,' he said. 'You must command
yourself, Janet; it can't be altered now.'

"'O, Bale,' I cried nearly distracted, 'you would not kill yourself!'

"'Kill myself! poor child! no, indeed,' he said; 'it is simply that I
shall die. No violent death--nothing but the common subsidence of
life--I have made up my mind; what happens to everybody can't be so very
bad; and millions of worse men than I die every year. You must not
follow me to my room, darling; I shall see you by and by.'

"His language was collected and even cold; but his face looked as if it
was cut in stone; you never saw, in a dream, a face like it."

Lady Walsingham here said, "I am certain he is ill; he's in a fever. You
must not distract and torture yourself about his predictions. You sent
for Doctor Torvey; what did he say?"

"I could not tell him all."

"O, no; I don't mean that; they'd only say he was mad, and we little
better for minding what he says. But did the Doctor see him? and what
did he say of his health?"

"Yes; he says there is nothing wrong--no fever--nothing whatever. Poor
Bale has been so kind; he saw him to please me," she sobbed again
wildly. "I wrote to implore of him. It was my last hope, strange as it
seems; and O, would to God I could think it! But there is nothing of
that kind. Wait till you have seen him. There is a frightful calmness
about all he says and does; and