ected Michael to follow them, but he had other
business on hand. There was his interview with Mrs. Blake, and on
leaving Hillside he went straight to the Gray Cottage.

Mollie met him at the door. She looked disturbed and anxious.

'Yes; you are to go up to the drawing-room, Captain Burnett,' she said,
when he asked if Mrs. Blake were at home. 'Mamma is there. I heard her
tell Biddy so. Do you know'--puckering up her face as though she were
ready to cry--'mamma will not speak to any of us--not even to Cyril! She
says she is ill, and that only Biddy understands her. It is so odd that
she is able to see a visitor.'

'What makes you think she is ill, Mollie?'

'Oh, because she looked so dreadful when she came home last night; she
could hardly walk upstairs, and Cyril was not there to help her. He was
quite frightened when I told him, and went to her room at once; but her
door was locked, and she said her head ached so that she could not talk.
Biddy was with her then; we could hear her voice distinctly, and mamma
seemed moaning so.'

'Has she seen your brother this morning?'

'Yes, just for a minute; but the room was darkened, and he could not see
her properly. She told him that the pain had got on the nerves, and that
she really could not bear us near her. But she would not let him send
for a doctor, and Biddy seemed to agree with her.'

'Perhaps she will be better to-morrow,' he suggested; and then he left
Mollie and went upstairs. 'Poor little girl!' he said to himself; 'I
wonder what she would say if she knew her father were living!'

And then he tapped at the drawing-room door. He was not quite sure
whether anyone bade him enter. Mrs. Blake was sitting in a chair drawn
close to the fire; her back was towards him. She did not move or turn
her head as he walked towards her, and when he put out his hand to her
she took no notice of it.

'You have come,' she said, in a quick, hard voice. And then she turned
away from him and looked into the fire.

'Yes, I have come,' he replied quietly, as he sat down on the oak settle
that was drawn up near her chair. 'I am sorry to see you look so ill,
Mrs. Blake.'

He might well say so. She had aged ten years since the previous night.
Her face was quite drawn and haggard--he had never before noticed that
there were threads of gray in her dark hair--she had always looked so
marvellously young; but now he could see the lines and the crows'-feet;
and as his sharp eyes detected