e corridor which communicated with his rooms, and by this bell he
was always summoned. There were servants who had been ten years at
Fellside, and who had never crossed the threshold of the red cloth door
which was the only communication between the new house and the old one.
Steadman's wife performed all household duties of cooking and cleaning
in the south wing, where she and her husband took all their meals, and
lived entirely apart from the other servants, an exclusiveness which was
secretly resented by the establishment.

'Mr. Steadman may be a very superior man,' said the butler 'and I know
that in his own estimation the Premier isn't in it compared with him;
but I never was fond of people who set themselves upon pinnacles, and
I'm not fond of the Steadmans.'

'Mrs. Steadman's plain and homely enough,' replied the housekeeper, 'and
I know she'd like to be more sociable, and drop into my room for a cup
of tea now and then; but Steadman do so keep her under his thumb: and
because he's a misanthrope she's obliged to sit and mope alone.'

If Steadman wanted to drive, there was a dogcart and horse at his
disposal; but he did not often leave Fellside. He seemed in his humble
way to model his life upon Lady Maulevrier's secluded habits. It was
growing dusk when Steadman left his mistress, and she lay for some time
looking at the landscape over which twilight shadows were stealing, and
thinking of her own life. Over that life, too, the shadows of evening
were creeping. She had began to realise the fact that she was an old
woman; that for her all personal interest in life was nearly over. She
had never felt her age while her activity was unimpaired. She had been
obliged to remind herself very often that the afternoon and evening of
life had slipped away unawares in that tranquil retirement, and that the
night was at hand.

For her the close of earthly life meant actual night. No new dawn, no
mysterious after-life shone upon her with magical gleams of an unknown
light upon the other side of the dark river. She had accepted the
Materialist's bitter and barren creed, and had taught herself that this
little life was all. She had learned to scorn the idea of a great
Artificer outside the universe, a mighty spirit riding amidst the
clouds, and ruling the course of nature and the fate of man. She had
schooled herself to think that the idea of a blind, unconscious Nature,
working automatically through infinite time and space, w