anfully determined not to give way an
inch to his own continued reluctance to leave home, he packed up his
brushes and colors, and started on his portrait-painting tour by the
early train which he had originally settled to travel by.

Although he had every chance of spending his time, during his absence,
agreeably as well as profitably, his inexplicable sense of uneasiness at
being away from home, remained with him even on the railway; defying
all the exhilarating influences of rapid motion and change of scene, and
oppressing him as inveterately as it had oppressed him the night before.
Bad, however, as his spirits now were, they would have been much worse,
if he had known of two remarkable domestic events, which it had been the
policy of his household to keep strictly concealed from him on the day
of his departure.

When Mr. Blyth's cook descended the first thing in the morning to air
the studio in the usual way, by opening the garden door, she was not a
little amazed and alarmed to find that, although it was closed, it
was neither bolted nor locked. She communicated this circumstance
(reproachfully, of course) to the housemaid, who answered (indignantly,
as was only natural) by reiterating her assertion of the past night,
that she had secured the door properly at six o'clock in the evening.
Polly, appealing to contradictory visible fact, rejoined that the thing
was impossible. Patty, holding fast to affirmatory personal knowledge,
retorted that the thing had been done. Upon this, the two had a violent
quarrel--followed by a sulky silence--succeeded by an affectionate
reconciliation--terminated by a politic resolution to say nothing more
about the matter, and especially to abstain from breathing a word in
connection with it to the ruling authorities above stairs. Thus it
happened that neither Valentine nor his wife knew anything of the
suspicious appearance presented that morning by the garden door.

But, though Mrs. Blyth was ignorant on this point, she was well enough
informed on another of equal, if not greater, domestic importance. While
her husband was down-stairs taking his early breakfast, Madonna came
into her room; and communicated confidentially all the particulars
of the terrible fright that she had suffered, while looking for her
bodkin-case in the studio, on the night before. How her candle could
possibly have gone out, as it did in an instant, she could not say.
She was quite sure that nobody was in the