may see me lodged in Riversborough
jail, as if I had been arrested fourteen years ago. You know this,
Phebe?"

"Yes, I know it, but I am not afraid of it," she answered.

She had not the slightest fear of old Mr. Clifford's vindictiveness. As
she travelled down to Riversborough, with Jean Merle in a third-class
carriage of the same train, her mind was very busy with troubled
thoughts. There was an unquiet joy stirring in the secret depths of her
heart, but she was too full of anxiety and bewilderment to be altogether
aware of it. Though it was not more than twenty-four hours since she had
known otherwise, it seemed to her as if she had never believed that
Roland Sefton was dead, and it appeared incredible that the report of
his death should have received such full acceptance as it had everywhere
done. Yet though he had come back, there could be no welcome for him. To
her and to old Mr. Clifford only could this return from the grave
contain any gladness. And was she glad? she asked herself, after a long
deliberation over the difficulties surrounding this strange
reappearance. She had sorrowed for him and comforted his mother in her
mourning, and talked of him as one talks fondly of the dead to his
children; and all the sacred healing of time had softened the grief she
once felt into a tranquil and grateful memory of him, as of the friend
she had loved most, and whose care for her had most widely influenced
her life. But she could not own yet that she was glad.

Old Mr. Clifford was sitting in the wainscoted dining-room, his favorite
room, when Phebe opened the door silently, and looked in with a pale and
anxious face. His sight was dim, and a blaze of light fell upon the
dark, old panels, and the old-fashioned silver tankards and bright brass
salvers on the carved sideboard. Two or three of Phebe's sunniest
pictures hung against the oaken panels. There was a blazing fire on the
hearth, and the old man, with his elbows resting on the arms of his
chair, and his hands clasped lightly, was watching the play and dance of
the flames as they shot up the chimney. Some new books lay on a table
beside him, but he was not reading. He was sitting there in utter
loneliness, with no companionship except that of his own fading
memories. Phebe's tenderness for the old man was very great; and she
paused on the threshold gazing at him pitifully; whilst Jean Merle,
standing in the hall behind her, caught a glimpse of the hearth so
crowd