e no positive objection, Sir Percival, to that reason----"

"Very well! That's all I want to know. If people apply for your
character, that's your reason, stated by yourself. You go in
consequence of the breaking up of the family."

He turned away again before I could say another word, and walked out
rapidly into the grounds. His manner was as strange as his language.
I acknowledge he alarmed me.

Even the patience of Mrs. Rubelle was getting exhausted, when I joined
her at the house door.

"At last!" she said, with a shrug of her lean foreign shoulders. She
led the way into the inhabited side of the house, ascended the stairs,
and opened with her key the door at the end of the passage, which
communicated with the old Elizabethan rooms--a door never previously
used, in my time, at Blackwater Park. The rooms themselves I knew
well, having entered them myself on various occasions from the other
side of the house. Mrs. Rubelle stopped at the third door along the
old gallery, handed me the key of it, with the key of the door of
communication, and told me I should find Miss Halcombe in that room.
Before I went in I thought it desirable to make her understand that her
attendance had ceased. Accordingly, I told her in plain words that the
charge of the sick lady henceforth devolved entirely on myself.

"I am glad to hear it, ma'am," said Mrs. Rubelle. "I want to go very
much."

"Do you leave to-day?" I asked, to make sure of her.

"Now that you have taken charge, ma'am, I leave in half an hour's time.
Sir Percival has kindly placed at my disposition the gardener, and the
chaise, whenever I want them. I shall want them in half an hour's time
to go to the station. I am packed up in anticipation already. I wish
you good-day, ma'am."

She dropped a brisk curtsey, and walked back along the gallery, humming
a little tune, and keeping time to it cheerfully with the nosegay in
her hand. I am sincerely thankful to say that was the last I saw of
Mrs. Rubelle.

When I went into the room Miss Halcombe was asleep. I looked at her
anxiously, as she lay in the dismal, high, old-fashioned bed. She was
certainly not in any respect altered for the worse since I had seen her
last. She had not been neglected, I am bound to admit, in any way that
I could perceive. The room was dreary, and dusty, and dark, but the
window (looking on a solitary court-yard at the back of the house) was
opened to let in the fresh air, and all t