mine. It will be our home if--if anything should happen. I
thought it might be wise to have that ready, to make it our headquarters,
in case--in case Theo should carry out the improvements."

"Improvements!" they cried with one voice. "What improvements? How could
the Warren be improved?"

"You must not speak to me in such a tone. There has always been a
question of cutting down some of the trees."

"But papa would never agree to it; papa said he would never consent to
it."

"I think," said Mrs. Warrender, with a guilty blush, "that he--had begun
to change his mind."

"Only when he was growing weak, then,--only when you over-persuaded
him."

"Minnie! I see that your brother was right, and that this is not a time
for any discussion," Mrs. Warrender said.

There was again a silence: and they all came back to the original state
of mind from which they started, and remembered that quiet and subdued
tones and an incapacity for the consideration of secular subjects were
the proper mental attitude for all that remained of this day.

It was not, however, long that this becoming condition lasted. Sounds
were heard as of voices in the distance, and then some one running at
full speed across the gravel drive in front of the door, and through the
hall. Minnie had risen up in horror to stop this interruption, when the
door burst open, and Theo, pale and excited, rushed in. "Mother," he
cried, "there has been a dreadful accident. Markland has been thrown by
those wild brutes of his, and I don't know what has happened to him. It
was just at the gates, and they are bringing him here. There is no help
for it. Where can they take him to?"

Mrs. Warrender rose to her feet at once; her heart rising too almost
with pleasure to the thrill of a new event. She hurried out to open the
door of a large vacant room on the ground floor. "What was Lord Markland
doing here?" she said. "He ought to have reached home long ago."

"He has been in _that_ house in the village, mother. They seemed to
think everybody would understand. I don't know what he has to do there."

"He has nothing to do there. Oh, Theo, that poor young wife of his! And
had he the heart to go from--from--us, in our trouble--there!"

"He seems to have paid for it, whatever was wrong in it. Go back to the
drawing-room, for here they are coming."

"Theo, they are carrying him as if he were----"

"Go back to the drawing-room, mother. Whatever it is, it cannot be
helped,"