ardly
at rest. Inwardly she was ranging all her arguments, marshalling all her
forces.

When the chiming clock in the great hall below struck nine, she got up
and put the lamp for a moment on the mantelpiece, which held a mirror.
She had already bathed her face and smoothed her hair. But she looked at
herself again with attention, drew down the thick front waves of hair a
little lower on the white brow, as she liked to have them, and once
more straightened the collar and cuffs which were the only relief to her
plain black dress.

The house as she stepped out into it seemed very still. Perfumed breaths
of flowers and pot-pourri ascended from the hall. The pictures along the
walls as she passed were those same Caroline and early Georgian beauties
that had so flashingly suggested her own future rule in this domain on
the day when Aldous proposed to her.

She felt suddenly very shrinking and lonely as she went downstairs. The
ticking of a large clock somewhere--the short, screaming note of Miss
Raeburn's parrot in one of the ground-floor rooms--these sounds and the
beating of her own heart seemed to have the vast house to themselves.

No!--that was a door opening--Aldous coming to fetch her. She drew a
childish breath of comfort.

He sprang up the stairs, two or three steps at a time, as he saw her
coming.

"Are you rested--were they good to you? Oh! my precious one!--how pale
you are still! Will you come and see my--grandfather now? He is quite
ready."

She let him lead her in. Lord Maxwell was standing by his writing-table,
leaning over the petition which was open before him--one hand upon it.
At sight of her he lifted his white head. His fine aquiline face was
grave and disturbed. But nothing could have been kinder or more courtly
than his manner as he came towards her.

"Sit down in that chair. Aldous, make her comfortable. Poor child, how
tired she looks! I hear you wished to speak to me on this most unhappy,
most miserable business."

Marcella, who was sitting erect on the edge of the chair into which
Aldous had put her, lifted her eyes with a sudden confidence. She had
always liked Lord Maxwell.

"Yes," she said, struggling to keep down eagerness and emotion. "Yes, I
came to bring you this petition, which is to be sent up to the Home
Secretary on behalf of Jim Hurd, and--and--to _beg_ of you and Aldous to
sign it, if in any way you can. I know it will be difficult, but I
thought I might--I might be able