hint, touched on the idea
which was at that moment in Mr. Rayburn's mind.

Interpreted by his strong prejudice against John Zant, what she had said
of her brother-in-law filled him with forebodings of peril to herself;
all the more powerful in their influence, for this reason--that he
shrank from distinctly realizing them. If another person had been
present at the interview, and had said to him afterward: "That man's
reluctance to visit his sister-in-law, while her husband was living, is
associated with a secret sense of guilt which her innocence cannot
even imagine: he, and he alone, knows the cause of her husband's sudden
death: his feigned anxiety about her health is adopted as the safest
means of enticing her into his house,"--if those formidable conclusions
had been urged on Mr. Rayburn, he would have felt it his duty to reject
them, as unjustifiable aspersions on an absent man. And yet, when he
took leave that evening of Mrs. Zant, he had pledged himself to give
Lucy a holiday at the seaside: and he had said, without blushing, that
the child really deserved it, as a reward for general good conduct and
attention to her lessons!

IX.

THREE days later, the father and daughter arrived toward evening at St.
Sallins-on-Sea. They found Mrs. Zant at the station.

The poor woman's joy, on seeing them, expressed itself like the joy of a
child. "Oh, I am so glad! so glad!" was all she could say when they met.
Lucy was half-smothered with kisses, and was made supremely happy by a
present of the finest doll she had ever possessed. Mrs. Zant accompanied
her friends to the rooms which had been secured at the hotel. She was
able to speak confidentially to Mr. Rayburn, while Lucy was in the
balcony hugging her doll, and looking at the sea.

The one event that had happened during Mrs. Zant's short residence at
St. Sallins was the departure of her brother-in-law that morning, for
London. He had been called away to operate on the feet of a wealthy
patient who knew the value of his time: his housekeeper expected that he
would return to dinner.

As to his conduct toward Mrs. Zant, he was not only as attentive as
ever--he was almost oppressively affectionate in his language and
manner. There was no service that a man could render which he had
not eagerly offered to her. He declared that he already perceived an
improvement in her health; he congratulated her on having decided to
stay in his house; and (as a proof, perhaps, of his