n felt well
enough to see him, but he thanked her, saying it was better not.

'It could not have been his doing,' thought Phoebe, as she went
up-stairs. 'How strong-minded Cecily must be! I wonder whether she
would have done Bertha good.'

'Whose voice was that?' exclaimed Mervyn, at his door above.

'Sir John Raymond and his brother.'

'Are they coming in?'

'No; they thought it might disturb you.'

Phoebe was glad that these answers fell to the share of the unconscious
Robert. Mervyn sat down, and did not revert to the Raymonds through all
the homeward journey. Indeed, he seemed unequal to speaking at all, went
to his room immediately, and did not appear again when the others came
home, bringing tidings that the verdict was guilty, and the sentence
penal servitude. Lady Bannerman had further made a positive engagement
with the sheriff's lady, and was at first incredulous, then highly
displeased, at Phoebe's refusal to be included in it. She was sure it
was only that Phoebe was bent on her own way, and thought she should get
it when left at home with her guardian and her brothers.

Poor Phoebe, she did not so much as know what her own way was! She had
never so much wished for her _wise_ guardian, but in the meantime the
only wisdom she could see was to wait patiently, and embrace whatever
proposal would seem best for the others, though with little hope that any
would not entail pain and separation from those who could spare her as
ill as she could spare them.

Dr. Martyn was to come over in the course of the ensuing day to examine
Bertha, and give her guardian his opinion of her state. There was little
danger of its being favourable to violent changes, for Augusta made a
descent on the school-room after dinner, and the morbid agitation thus
occasioned obliged Miss Fennimore to sit up with the patient till one
o'clock. In the morning the languor was extreme, and the cough so
frequent that the fear for the lungs was in the ascendant.

But Augusta, knowing of all this, believed her visit to have been most
important, and immediately after breakfast summoned Robert to a
conference, that he might be convinced that there must be no delay in
taking measures for breaking up the present system.

'We must hear what Dr. Martyn says.'

'I never thought anything of Dr. Martyn since he advised me to leave off
wine at supper. As Juliana says, a physician can always be taken in by
an artful woman, and he is playi