"Do?" repeated Louisa. "Oh what is there I would _not_ do!" She tried
to kiss her mistress's hand; but Magdalen would not permit it. She
resolutely, almost roughly, drew her hand away.

"I am laying you under no obligation," she said. "We are serving each
other--that is all. Sit quiet, and let me think."

For the next ten minutes there was silence in the room. At the end of
that time Magdalen took out her watch and held it close to the grate.
There was just firelight enough to show her the hour. It was close on
six o'clock.

"Are you composed enough to go downstairs and deliver a message?" she
asked, rising from her chair as she spoke to Louisa again. "It is a very
simple message--it is only to tell the boy that I want a cab as soon as
he can get me one. I must go out immediately. You shall know why later
in the evening. I have much more to say to you; but there is no time
to say it now. When I am gone, bring your work up here, and wait for my
return. I shall be back before bed-time."

Without another word of explanation, she hurriedly lit a candle and
withdrew into the bedroom to put on her bonnet and shawl.

CHAPTER II.

BETWEEN nine and ten o clock the same evening, Louisa, waiting
anxiously, heard the long-expected knock at the house door. She ran
downstairs at once and let her mistress in.

Magdalen's face was flushed. She showed far more agitation on returning
to the house than she had shown on leaving it. "Keep your place at the
table," she said to Louisa, impatiently; "but lay aside your work. I
want you to attend carefully to what I am going to say."

Louisa obeyed. Magdalen seated herself at the opposite side of the
table, and moved the candles, so as to obtain a clear and uninterrupted
view of her servant's face.

"Have you noticed a respectable elderly woman," she began, abruptly,
"who has been here once or twice in the last fortnight to pay me a
visit?"

"Yes, ma'am; I think I let her in the second time she came. An elderly
person named Mrs. Attwood?"

"That is the person I mean. Mrs. Attwood is Mr. Loscombe's housekeeper;
not the housekeeper at his private residence, but the housekeeper at his
offices in Lincoln's Inn. I promised to go and drink tea with her some
evening this week, and I have been to-night. It is strange of me, is
it not, to be on these familiar terms with a woman in Mrs. Attwood's
situation?"

Louisa made no answer in words. Her face spoke for her: she could hardly
avo