eality into the darkness. By the time he had become fully
sensible of all these particulars his agitated companion had found her
breath.

"Mr Wentworth, don't think me mad," said Miss Wodehouse; "I have come
out to speak to you, for I am in great distress. I don't know what to
do unless you will help me. Oh no, don't look at the house--nobody
knows in the house; I would die rather than have them know. Hush,
hush! don't make any noise. Is that some one looking out at the door?"

And just then the door was opened, and Mr Wodehouse's sole male
servant looked out, and round the garden, as if he had heard something
to excite his curiosity or surprise. Miss Wodehouse grasped the arm of
the Perpetual Curate, and held him with an energy which was almost
violence. "Hush, hush, hush," she said, with her voice almost at his
ear. The excitement of this mild woman, the perfectly inexplicable
mystery of the meeting, overwhelmed young Wentworth. He could think of
nothing less than that she had lost her senses, and in his turn he
took her hands and held her fast.

"What is the matter? I cannot tell you how anxious, how distressed I
am. What has happened?" said the young man, under his breath.

"My father has some suspicion," she answered, after a pause--"he came
home early to-day looking ill. You heard of it, Mr Wentworth--it was
your note that decided me. Oh, heaven help us! it is so hard to know
what to do. I have never been used to act for myself, and I feel as
helpless as a baby. The only comfort I have was that it happened on
Easter Sunday," said the poor gentlewoman, incoherently; "and oh! if
it should prove a rising from the dead! If you saw me, Mr Wentworth,
you would see I look ten years older; and I can't tell you how it is,
but I think my father has suspicions;--he looked so ill--oh, so
ill--when he came home to-night. Hush! hush! did you hear anything? I
daren't tell Lucy; not that I couldn't trust her, but it is cruel when
a young creature is happy, to let her know such miseries. Oh, Mr
Wentworth, I daresay I am not telling you what it is, after all. I
don't know what I am saying--wait till I can think. It was on Easter
Sunday, after we came home from Wharfside; you remember we all came
home together, and both Lucy and you were so quiet. I could not
understand how it was you were so quiet, but I was not thinking of any
trouble--and then all at once there he was."

"Who?" said the Curate, forgetting caution in his bewi