it was only the accumulated agitation of the day that made him weak.
Somebody was coming up the stairs, and towards the room, with a
footstep more careless than those stealthy steps with which all the
servants were stealing about the house. Whoever he was, he stopped at
the door a moment, and then looked cautiously in. When he saw the
figure of the Curate in the imperfect light, he withdrew his head
again as if deliberating with himself, and then, with a sudden rush,
came in, and shut the door after him. "Confound these servants,
they're always prowling about the house," said the new-comer. He was
an alarming apparition in his great beard and his shabbiness, and the
fugitive look he had. "I couldn't help it," he broke forth, with a
spontaneous burst of apology and self-defence. "I heard he was ill,
and I couldn't keep quiet. How is he? You don't mean to say _that's_
my fault. Molly, can't you speak to me? How could I tell I should find
you and the parson alone here, and all safe? I might have been risking
my--my--freedom--everything I care for; but when I heard he was ill, I
couldn't stay quiet. Is he dying?--what's the matter? Molly, can't you
speak?"

"Oh, Mr Wentworth, somebody will see him," cried Miss Wodehouse,
wringing her hands. "Oh Tom, Tom, how could you do it? Suppose
somebody was to come in--John or somebody. If you care for your own
life, oh, go away, go away!"

"They can't touch my life," said the stranger, sullenly. "I daresay
she doesn't know that. Nor the parson need not look superior--there
are more people concerned than I; but if I've risked everything to
hear, you may surely tell me how the old man is."

"If it was love that brought you," said poor Miss Wodehouse; "but oh,
Tom, you know I can't believe that. He is very, very ill; and it is
you that have done it," cried the mild woman, in a little gush of
passion--"you whom he has forgiven and forgiven till his heart is
sick. Go away, I tell you, go away from the house that you have
shamed. Oh, Mr Wentworth, take him away," she cried, turning to the
Curate with clasped hands--"tell him to hide--to fly--or he'll be
taken: he will not be forgiven this time; and if my father--if my dear
father dies--" But when she got so far her agitation interrupted her.
She kept her eyes upon the door with a wild look of terror, and waved
her helpless hands to warn the intruder away.

"If he dies, matters will be altered," said the stranger: "you and I
might chang