and papers back to the Cloistered
House, and locked them away with all the other papers and correspondence
which the Countess had accumulated.

Among these papers was a letter to the late Lord Eglington written the
day before she died. In the haste and confusion ensuing on her death,
the maid had not seen it. It had never reached his hands, but lay in a
pocket of the dead woman's writing-portfolio, which Hylda had explored
without discovering. Only a few hours, however, before the Duchess
of Snowdon came, Hylda had found again an empty envelope on which was
written the name, James Fetherdon. The writing on the envelope was that
of Sybil Lady Eglington.

When she discovered the envelope, a sense of mystery and premonition
possessed her. What was the association between the Countess of
Eglington and James Fetherdon, the father of David Claridge? In vain she
searched among the voluminous letters and papers, for it would seem that
the dead woman had saved every letter she received, and kept copies of
numberless letters she had written. But she had searched without avail.
Even the diaries, curiously frank and without reserve, never mentioned
the name, so far as she could find, though here and there were strange
allusive references, hints of a trouble that weighed her down, phrases
of exasperation and defiance. One phrase, or the idea in it, was,
however, much repeated in the diaries during the course of years, and
towards the last almost feverishly emphasised--"Why should I bear it for
one who would bear nothing for me, for his sake, who would do nothing
for my sake? Is it only the mother in me, not the love in me?"

These words were haunting Hylda's brain when the telegram from the
Duchess of Snowdon came. They followed her to Heddington, whither she
went in the carriage to bring her visitor to Hamley, and kept repeating
themselves at the back of her mind through the cheerful rallying of the
Duchess, who spread out the wings of good-humour and motherly freedom
over her.

After all, it was an agreeable thing to be taken possession of, and "put
in her proper place," as the Duchess said; made to understand that her
own affairs were not so important, after all; and that it was far more
essential to hear the charming gossip about the new and most popular
Princess of Wales, or the quarrel between Dickens and Thackeray. Yet,
after dinner, in the little sitting-room, where the Duchess, in a white
gown with great pink bows, fit