no one. He asked no questions about Caroline, nor any about his
uncle. He did not even call on his sincere friend Pritchett. Had he
done so, he would have learned that Miss Baker and her niece were
both staying at Hadley. He might also have learned other news, which,
however, was not long in following him.

He went down to Hurst Staple, merely writing a line the day before he
started, to prepare his friend for his advent. But when he reached
the vicarage, Arthur Wilkinson was not there. He was at Oxford; but
had left word that he was to be summoned home as soon as Bertram
arrived. The ladies, however, expected him, and there would have
been nothing for him to remark in the state of the quiet household
had there not been another visitor in the house. Adela Gauntlet was
staying there, and she was dressed in the deepest mourning.

The story was soon told to him. Mr. Gauntlet had one morning been
found dead in his dressing-room. The good old man had been full
of years, and there was nothing frightful in his death but its
suddenness. But sudden death is always frightful. Overnight he had
been talking to his daughter with his usual quiet, very quiet, mirth;
and in the morning she was woke with the news that his spirit had
fled. His mirth for this world was over. His worldly duties were
done. He had received his daughter's last kiss, had closed for the
last time the book which had been his life's guide, had whispered to
heaven his last prayer, and his soul was now at rest.

There was nothing in this that the world need regard as mournful.
There was no pain, no mental pangs, no dire remorse. But for Adela
the suddenness had been very dreadful.

Among her other miseries had been the great misery of having to seek
a home. An Englishman's house is his castle. And a rector's parsonage
is as much the rector's castle, his own freehold castle, as is the
earl's family mansion that of the earl. But it is so with this
drawback, that the moment the rector's breath is out of his body, all
right and claim to the castle as regards his estate and family cease
instantly. If the widow and children remain there one night, they
remain there on sufferance.

Adela's future home would now necessarily be with her aunt, Miss
Penelope Gauntlet; but it happened most unfortunately that at the
moment of her brother's death, Miss Gauntlet was absent with other
relatives in Italy. Nor was her address accurately known. Her party
had been at Rome; but