ing, be altogether lost. Then would the
checkmate have been absolute. The reader will have known that such
a step had never been contemplated by the man, and will also have
perceived that it would have been altogether opposed to the girl's
character; but it is hoped that the reader has looked more closely
into the man's motives and the girl's character than even her mother
was able to do. The Countess had thought that she had known her
daughter. She had been mistaken, and now there was hardly anything
of which she could not suspect her girl to be capable. Lady Anna was
watched, therefore, during every minute of the four and twenty hours.
A policeman was told off to protect the house at night from rope
ladders or any other less cumbrous ingenuity. The servants were set
on guard. Sarah, the lady's-maid, followed her mistress almost like
a ghost when the poor young lady went to her bedroom. Mrs. Bluestone,
or one of the girls, was always with her, either indoors or out of
doors. Out of doors, indeed, she never went without more guards than
one. A carriage had been hired,--a luxury with which Mrs. Bluestone
had hitherto dispensed,--and the carriage was always there when Lady
Anna suggested that she should like to leave the house. She was
warmly invited to go shopping, and made to understand that in the way
of ordinary shopping she could buy what she pleased. But her life was
inexpressibly miserable. "What does mamma mean to do?" she said to
Mrs. Bluestone on the Saturday morning.

"In what way, my dear?"

"Where does she mean to go? She won't live always in Keppel Street?"

"No,--I do not think that she will live always in Keppel Street. It
depends a good deal upon you, I think."

"I will go wherever she pleases to take me. The lawsuit is over now,
and I don't know why we should stay here. I am sure you can't like
it."

To tell the truth, Mrs. Bluestone did not like it at all.
Circumstances had made her a gaoler, but by nature she was very ill
constituted for that office. The harshness of it was detestable to
her, and then there was no reason whatever why she should sacrifice
her domestic comfort for the Lovels. The thing had grown upon them,
till the Lovels had become an incubus to her. Personally, she liked
Lady Anna, but she was unable to treat Lady Anna as she would treat
any other girl that she liked. She had told the Serjeant more than
once that she could not endure it much longer. And the Serjeant did
not like