Redmain's room
unencountered, but just as she knocked at the door, Mewks came behind
her from somewhere, and snatching the letter out of her hand, for she
carried it ready to justify her entrance to the first glance of her
irritable master, pushed her rudely away, and immediately went in. But
as he did so he put the letter in his pocket.

"Who took the note?" asked his master.

"The girl at the lodge, sir."

"Is she not come back yet?"

"No, sir, not yet. She'll be in a minute, though. I saw her coming up
the avenue."

"Go and bring her here."

"Yes, sir."

Mewks went, and in two minutes returned with the letter, and the
message that Miss Marston hadn't time to direct it.

"You damned rascal! I told you to bring the messenger here."

"She ran the whole way, sir, and not being very strong, was that tired,
that, the moment she got in, the poor thing dropped in a dead faint.
They ain't got her to yet."

His master gave him one look straight in the eyes, then opened the
letter, and read it.

"Miss Marston will call here tomorrow morning," he said; "see that
_she_ is shown up at once--here, to my sitting-room. I hope I am
explicit."

When the man was gone, Mr. Redmain nodded his head three times, and
grinned the skin tight as a drum-head over his cheek-bones.

"There isn't a damned soul of them to be trusted!" he said to himself,
and sat silently thoughtful.

Perhaps he was thinking how often he had come short of the hope placed
in him; times of reflection arrive to most men; and a threatened attack
of the illness he believed must one day carry him off, might well have
disposed him to think.

In the evening he was worse.

By midnight he was in agony, and Lady Margaret was up with him all
night. In the morning came a lull, and Lady Margaret went to bed. His
wife had not come near him. But Sepia might have been seen, more than
once or twice, hovering about his door.

Both she and Mewks thought, after such a night, he must have forgotten
his appointment with Mary.

When he had had some chocolate, he fell into a doze. But his sleep was
far from profound. Often he woke and again dozed off.

The clock in the dressing-room struck eleven.

"Show Miss Marston up the moment she arrives," he said--and his voice
was almost like that of a man in health.

"Yes, sir," replied the startled Mewks, and felt he must obey.

So Mary was at once shown to the chamber of the sick man.

To her surprise (for Mewks had