cannot understand, and I am not alone. Where are those who plotted
against you? George dead, Bellamy gone, Lady Bellamy paralysed hand
and foot, and myself--although I did not plot, I only let them be--
accursed. But, if you can forget the past, why do you not come back to
my house? Of course I cannot force you; you are free and rich, and can
suit yourself."

"I will come for a time if you wish--if I can bring Pigott with me."

"You may bring twenty Pigotts, for all I care--so long as you will pay
for their board," he added, with a touch of his old miserliness. "But
what do you mean 'for a time'?"

"I do not think I shall stop here long; I think that I am going into a
sisterhood."

"Oh! well, you are your own mistress, and must do as you choose."

"Then I will come to-morrow," and they parted.

CHAPTER LXIX

And so on the following day Angela and Pigott returned to the Abbey
House, but they both felt that it was a sad home-coming. Indeed, if
there had been no other cause for melancholy, the sight of Philip's
face was enough to excite it in the most happy-minded person. Not that
Angela saw much of him, however, for they still kept to their old
habit of not living together. All day her father was shut up in his
room transacting business that had reference to the accession of his
property and the settlement of George's affairs; for his cousin had
died intestate, so he took his personalty and wound up the estate as
heir-at-law. At night, however, he would go out and walk for miles,
and in all weathers--he seemed to dread spending the dark hours at
home.

When Angela had been back about a month in the old place, she
accidentally got a curious insight into her father's mental
sufferings.

It so happened that one night, finding it impossible to sleep, and
being much oppressed by sorrowful thoughts, she thought that she would
read the hours away. But the particular book she wanted to find was
downstairs, and it was two o'clock in the morning, and chilly in the
passages. However, anything is better than sleeplessness, and the
tyranny of sad thoughts and empty longings; so, throwing on her
dressing-gown, she took a candle, and set off, thinking as she went
how she had in the same guise fled before her husband.

She got her book, and was returning, when she saw that there was still
a light in her father's study, and that the door was ajar. At that
moment it so happened that an unusual