anced round, Rebecca had left the room. She rolled the paper
up and threw it into the fire. Ezra, then, was not so hard-hearted as
she had thought him. He had used his influence to soften his father.
Should she accept this chance of escape, or should she wait some word
from her friends? Perhaps they were already in Bedsworth, but did not
know how to communicate with her. If so, this offer of Ezra's was just
what was needed. In any case, she could go on to Portsmouth and
telegraph from there to the Dimsdales. It was too good an offer to be
refused. She made up her mind that she would accept it. It was past
eight now, and nine was the hour. She stood up with the intention of
putting on her cloak and her bonnet.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

This conversation with Rebecca had suggested to Ezra that he might still
have influence enough with his father's ward to induce her to come out
of doors, and so put herself within the reach of Burt. He had proposed
the plan to his father, who approved of it heartily. The only weak
point in his scheme had been the difficulty which might arise in
inducing the girl to venture out of the Priory on that tempestuous
winter's night. There was evidently only one incentive strong enough to
bring it about, and that was the hope of escape. By harping skilfully
upon this string they might lure her into the trap. Ezra and his father
composed the letter together, and the former handed it to Mrs. Jorrocks,
with a request that she should deliver it.

It chanced, however, that Rebecca, keenly alive to any attempt at
communication between the young merchant and her mistress, saw the crone
hobbling down the passage with the note in her hand.

"What's that, mother?" she asked.

"It's a letter for her," wheezed the old woman, nodding her tremulous
head in the direction of Kate's room.

"I'll take it up," said Rebecca eagerly. "I am just going up there with
her tea."

"Thank ye. Them stairs tries my rheumatiz something cruel."

The maid took the note and carried it upstairs. Instead of taking it
straight to her mistress she slipped into her own room and read every
word of it. It appeared to confirm her worst suspicions. Here was Ezra
asking an interview with the woman whom he had assured her that he
hated. It was true that the request was made in measured words and on a
plausible pretext. No doubt that was merely to deceive any other eye
which might rest upon i