nocked, and not waiting for an answer
half opened the door.

"If you please, ma'am, Mr Bernard is below, and wants to speak to
you."

"Mr Bernard! ask Miss Bell to see him."

"Miss Bell is with him, ma'am, but he says that he specially wants to
speak to you."

Mrs Dale felt that she could not leave Lily alone. She could not take
the letter away, nor could she leave her child with the letter open.

"I cannot see him," said Mrs Dale. "Ask him what it is. Tell him I
cannot come down just at present." And then the servant went, and
Bernard left his message with Bell.

"Bernard," she had said, "do you know of anything? Is there anything
wrong about Mr Crosbie?" Then, in a few words, he told her all, and
understanding why his aunt had not come down to him, he went back
to the Great House. Bell, almost stupefied by the tidings, seated
herself at the table unconsciously, leaning upon her elbows.

"It will kill her," she said to herself. "My Lily, my darling Lily!
It will surely kill her!"

But the mother was still with the daughter, and the story was still
untold.

"Mamma," said Lily, "whatever it is, I must, of course, be made to
know it. I begin to guess the truth. It will pain you to say it.
Shall I read the letter?"

Mrs Dale was astonished at her calmness. It could not be that she had
guessed the truth, or she would not stand like that, with tearless
eyes and unquelled courage before her.

"You shall read it, but I ought to tell you first. Oh, my child, my
own one!" Lily was now leaning against the bed, and her mother was
standing over her, caressing her.

"Then tell me," said she. "But I know what it is. He has thought it
all over while away from me, and he finds that it must not be as we
have supposed. Before he went I offered to release him, and now he
knows that he had better accept my offer. Is it so, mamma?" In answer
to this Mrs Dale did not speak, but Lily understood from her signs
that it was so.

"He might have written it to me, myself," said Lily very proudly.
"Mamma, we will go down to breakfast. He has sent nothing to me,
then?"

"There is a note. He bids me read it, but I have not opened it. It is
here."

"Give it me," said Lily, almost sternly. "Let me have his last words
to me;" and she took the note from her mother's hands.

"Lily," said the note, "your mother will have told you all. Before
you read these few words you will know that you have trusted one who
was quite untrustworthy.