any one,
sweetheart,--unless your mother ask you."

"What shall I tell her?"

"That I am hurt,--but not seriously hurt;--and that the less said
the sooner mended. Tell her also that I shall expect no further
interruption to my letters when I write to you,--or to my visits when
I can come. God bless you, dearest;--one kiss, and now I will go."

"You will send for me if you are ill, Daniel?"

"If I am really ill, I will send for you." So saying, he left her,
went down-stairs, with great difficulty opened for himself the front
door, and departed.

Lady Anna, though she had been told nothing of what had happened,
except that her lover was hurt, at once surmised something of what
had been done. Daniel Thwaite had suffered some hurt from her
mother's wrath. She sat for a while thinking what it might have been.
She had seen no sign of blood. Could it be that her mother had struck
him in her anger with some chance weapon that had come to hand? That
there had been violence she was sure,--and sure also that her mother
had been in fault. When Daniel had been some few minutes gone she
went down, that she might deliver his message. At the foot of the
stairs, and near the door of the parlour, she met Mrs. Richards. "I
suppose the young man has gone, my lady?" asked the woman.

"Mr. Thwaite has gone."

"And I make so bold, my lady, as to say that he ought not to come
here. There has been a doing of some kind, but I don't know what. He
says as how he's been hurt, and I'm sure I don't know how he should
be hurt here,--unless he brought it with him. I never had nothing of
the kind here before, long as I've been here. Of course your title
and that is all right, my lady; but the young man isn't fit;--that's
the truth of it. My belief is he'd been a drinking; and I won't have
it in my house."

Lady Anna passed by her without a word and went into her mother's
room. The Countess was still seated in her chair, and neither rose
nor spoke when her daughter entered. "Mamma, Mr. Thwaite is hurt."

"Well;--what of it? Is it much that ails him?"

"He is in pain. What has been done, mamma?" The Countess looked at
her, striving to learn from the girl's face and manner what had been
told and what concealed. "Did you--strike him?"

"Has he said that I struck him?"

"No, mamma;--but something has been done that should not have been
done. I know it. He has sent you a message, mamma."

"What was it?" asked the Countess, in a hoarse voice.