death had happened so suddenly that the news of it
scarcely got beyond the radius of the estate before the following
morning, and Stafford had gone to London in ignorance of this second
blow with which Fate had followed up the one he had dealt Ida: and when
the neighbours--the Vaynes, the Bannerdales, and the Avorys--came
quickly and readily enough to offer their sympathy and help, they could
do nothing. The girl solitary and lonely in her grief as she had been
solitary and lonely through her life, would see no one but the doctor
and Mr. Wordley, and the people who had once been warm and intimate
friends of the family left reluctantly and sully, to talk over the
melancholy circumstance, and to wonder what would become of the
daughter of the eccentric man who had lived the life of a recluse. Mr.
Wordley would have liked to have persuaded her to see some of the women
who had hastened to comfort her; but he knew that any attempt at
persuasion would have been in vain, that he would not have been able to
break down the barrier of reserve which the girl had instinctively and
reservedly erected between her suffering soul and the world. His heart
ached for her, and he did all that a man could do to lighten the burden
of her trouble; but there was very little that he could do beyond
superintending the necessary arrangements for the funeral.

His first thought was of the relatives; but, somewhat to his own
dismay, he found that the only one whom he could trace was a certain
cousin, a more than middle-aged man who, though he bore the name of
Heron, was quite unknown to Ida, and, so far as Mr. Wordley was aware,
had not crossed the threshold of the Hall for many years. He was a
certain John Heron, a retired barrister, who had gone in for religion,
not in the form of either of the Established Churches, but of that of
one of the least known sects, the members of which called themselves
some kind of brothers, were supposed to be very strict observers of the
Scriptural law, and were considered by those who did not belong to them
both narrow-minded and uncharitable.

Mr. John Heron was a prominent member of this little sect, and was
famous in its small circles for his extreme sanctity and his eloquence
as a lay preacher. Mr. Wordley, with much misgiving, had invited this,
the only relative he could find, to the funeral, and Ida was now
awaiting this gentleman's arrival.

The stealthy footsteps which belong to those who minister to the