as quickly as she
could to the lodge-gate, Clavering Park. Foker saw a running figure
before him, but it was lost when he got to the lodge-gate. He stopped
and asked, "Who was that who had just come in? Mrs. Bonner, was it?" He
reeled almost in his walk: the trees swam before him. He rested once or
twice against the trunks of the naked limes.

Lady Clavering was in the breakfast-room with her son, and her husband
yawning over his paper. "Good morning, Harry," said the Begum. "Here's
letters, lots of letters; Lady Rockminster will be here on Tuesday
instead of Monday, and Arthur and the Major come to-day; and Laura is
to go to Dr. Portman's, and come to church from there: and--what's the
matter, my dear? What makes you so pale, Harry?"

"Where is Blanche!" asked Harry, in a sickening voice--"not down yet?"

"Blanche is always the last," said the boy, eating muffins; "she's
a regular dawdle, she is. When you're not here, she lays in bed till
lunch-time."

"Be quiet, Frank," said the mother.

Blanche came down presently, looking pale, and with rather an eager look
towards Foker; then she advanced and kissed her mother, and had a face
beaming with her very best smiles on when she greeted Harry.

"How do you do, sir?" she said, and put out both her hands.

"I'm ill," answered Harry. "I--I've brought a letter for you, Blanche."

"A letter, and from whom is it, pray? Voyons," she said.

"I don't know--I should like to know," said Foker.

"How can I tell until I see it?" asked Blanche.

"Has Mrs. Bonner not told you?" he said, with a shaking voice;--"there's
some secret. You give her the letter, Lady Clavering."

Lady Clavering, wondering, took the letter from poor Foker's shaking
hand, and looked at the superscription. As she looked at it, she too
began to shake in every limb, and with a scared face she dropped the
letter, and running up to Frank, clutched the boy to her, and burst out
with a sob--"Take that away--it's impossible, it's impossible."

"What is the matter?" cried Blanche, with rather a ghastly smile; "the
letter is only from--from a poor pensioner and relative of ours."

"It's not true, it's not true," screamed Lady Clavering. "No, my
Frank--is it, Clavering?"

Blanche had taken up the letter, and was moving with it towards the
fire, but Foker ran to her and clutched her arm--"I must see that
letter," he said; "give it me. You shan't burn it."

"You--you shall not treat Miss Amory so in my hous