it for
the exertion of dinner, but she wishes to speak to my grandfather
afterwards."

Lord Maxwell had already hurried to meet the black-veiled figure
standing proudly in the dim light of the outer hall.

"My dear! my dear!" he said, drawing her arm within his, and patting her
hand in fatherly fashion. "How worn-out you look!--Yes,
certainly--Agneta, take her up and let her rest--And you wish to speak
to me afterwards? Of course, my dear, of course--at any time."

Miss Raeburn, controlling herself absolutely, partly because of Aldous's
manner, partly because of the servants, took her guest upstairs
straightway, put her on the sofa in a cheerful sitting-room with a
bright fire, and then, shrewdly guessing that she herself could not
possibly be a congenial companion to the girl at such a moment, whatever
might have happened or might be going to happen, she looked at her
watch, said that she must go down to dinner, and promptly left her to
the charge of a kind elderly maid, who was to do and get for her
whatever she would.

Marcella made herself swallow some food and wine. Then she said that she
wished to be alone and rest for an hour, and would come downstairs at
nine o'clock. The maid, shocked by her pallor, was loth to leave her,
but Marcella insisted.

When she was left alone she drew herself up to the fire and tried hard
to get warm, as she had tried to eat. When in this way a portion of
physical ease and strength had come back to her, she took out the
petition from its envelope and read it carefully. As she did so her lip
relaxed, her eye recovered something of its brightness. All the points
that had occurred to her confusedly, amateurishly, throughout the day,
were here thrown into luminous and admirable form. She had listened to
them indeed, as urged by Wharton in his concluding speech to the jury,
but it had not, alas! seemed so marvellous to her then, as it did now,
that, _after_ such a plea, the judge should have summed up as he did.

When she had finished it and had sat thinking awhile over the declining
fire, an idea struck her. She took a piece of paper from Miss Raeburn's
desk, and wrote on it:

"Will you read this--and Lord Maxwell--before I come down? I forgot that
you had not seen it.--M."

A ring at the bell brought the maid.

"Will you please get this taken to Mr. Raeburn? And then, don't disturb
me again for half an hour."

And for that time she lay in Miss Raeburn's favourite chair, outw