onscious,
he would wish to send some message--for during the two following days
whenever she went in to see him there was a hungering demand in his
haggard eyes.

So Miss Clinker took it upon herself to stop at the Professor's house on
one of her walks, meaning to beard Cheiron in his den, and find out
how--should it be necessary--she could communicate with Halcyone. And
then she was informed by Mrs. Porrit that her master would be away for a
fortnight, and that Miss Halcyone La Sarthe had been taken off by her
stepmother--she did not know where--and that the two old ladies had
actually gone that day, with Hester and old William, to some place on
the Welsh coast they had known when they were children, for a change to
the sea! La Sarthe Chase was shut up. Arabella Clinker was not
sufficiently acquainted with the habits of its inmates to appreciate the
unparalleled upheaval this dislodgment meant, but she saw that her
informant was highly surprised and impressed.

"I expect the poor old gentry felt too lonely to stop, once that dear
Miss Halcyone was gone," Mrs. Porrit said, "but there, when I heard it
you could have knocked me down with a feather!--them to go to the sea!"

All this looked hopeless as far as communicating with Halcyone
went--unless through a letter to the Professor. Arabella returned to
Wendover rather cast down.

She had been reasoning with herself severely over a point, and when her
letter went to her mother on the next Sunday, she was still undecided as
to what was her course of duty, and craved her parent's advice.

The case is this [she wrote]. Being quite aware of M. E.'s
intentions, am I being disloyal to her, in helping to frustrate them
by aiding Mr. Derringham to establish communications with the person
whom I have already vaguely hinted to you I believe he is interested
in? I do not feel it is altogether honorable to take my salary from
M. E. and to go against what I know to be the strong desire of her
life at the present time. On the other hand, my feelings of humanity
are appealed to by Mr. Derringham's weakness, and by the very poor
chance he will have of escaping M. E. when she begins her attack
during his convalescence. I have felt more easy in conscience
hitherto because I have merely stood aside, not aided the adversary,
but now there is a parting of the ways and I am greatly disturbed. I
like Mr. Derringham very much, he has alway