a quarter
to twelve--the train to London stopping at our station at twenty
minutes after. He informed Lady Glyde that he was obliged to go out,
but added that he hoped to be back before she left. If any unforeseen
accident delayed him, I was to accompany her to the station, and to
take special care that she was in time for the train. Sir Percival
communicated these directions very hastily--walking here and there
about the room all the time. Her ladyship looked attentively after him
wherever he went. He never once looked at her in return.

She only spoke when he had done, and then she stopped him as he
approached the door, by holding out her hand.

"I shall see you no more," she said, in a very marked manner. "This is
our parting--our parting, it may be for ever. Will you try to forgive
me, Percival, as heartily as I forgive YOU?"

His face turned of an awful whiteness all over, and great beads of
perspiration broke out on his bald forehead. "I shall come back," he
said, and made for the door, as hastily as if his wife's farewell words
had frightened him out of the room.

I had never liked Sir Percival, but the manner in which he left Lady
Glyde made me feel ashamed of having eaten his bread and lived in his
service. I thought of saying a few comforting and Christian words to
the poor lady, but there was something in her face, as she looked after
her husband when the door closed on him, that made me alter my mind and
keep silence.

At the time named the chaise drew up at the gates. Her ladyship was
right--Sir Percival never came back. I waited for him till the last
moment, and waited in vain.

No positive responsibility lay on my shoulders, and yet I did not feel
easy in my mind. "It is of your own free will," I said, as the chaise
drove through the lodge-gates, "that your ladyship goes to London?"

"I will go anywhere," she answered, "to end the dreadful suspense that
I am suffering at this moment."

She had made me feel almost as anxious and as uncertain about Miss
Halcombe as she felt herself. I presumed to ask her to write me a
line, if all went well in London. She answered, "Most willingly, Mrs.
Michelson."

"We all have our crosses to bear, my lady," I said, seeing her silent
and thoughtful, after she had promised to write.

She made no reply--she seemed to be too much wrapped up in her own
thoughts to attend to me.

"I fear your ladyship rested badly last night," I remarked, after
wait