he boy opposed a steady
resistance, and Lady Markland put down her hand to him, not seeing
how wrong it was to indulge him, all the ladies said. After this, of
course nothing could be done, and he remained with her through all that
followed. What followed was strange enough to have afforded a scene for
a tragedy. Lady Markland asked to speak to Warrender, who had retired,
leaving his mother, as was natural, to manage everything. He came to her
at the door of the room which had so suddenly, with its bare, unused
look, in the darkness of a few flickering candles, become a sort of
presence chamber filled with the solemnity of dying. Her little figure,
so neat and orderly, an embodiment of the settled peace and calm of
life having nothing to do with tragedies, with the child close pressed
against her side, his pale face looking as hers did, pale too and
stony--never altogether passed from the memory of the man who came,
reluctant, almost afraid, to hear what she had to say to him. It was
like a picture against the darkness of the room,--a darkness both
physical and moral, which centred in the curtained gloom behind, about
which two shadowy figures were busy. Often and with very different
sentiments he saw this group again, but never wholly forgot it, or had
it effaced from the depths of his memory.

"Mr. Warrender," she said, in a voice which was very low, yet he thought
might have been heard all over the house, "I want you to help me."

"Whatever I can do," he began, with some fervour, for he was young, and
his heart was touched.

"I want," she continued, "to carry him home at once. I know it will not
be easy, but it is night, and all is quiet. You are a man; you will know
better how it can be done. Manage it for me."

Warrender was entirely unprepared for such a commission. "There will be
great difficulties, dear Lady Markland," he said. "It is a long way. I
am sure my mother would not wish you to think of her. This is a house of
death. Let him stay."

She gave him a sort of smile, a softening of her stony face, and put out
her hand to him. "Do it for me," she said. She was not at all moved by
his objections,--perhaps she did not even hear them; but when she had
thus repeated her command, as a queen might have done, she turned back
into the room, and sat down, to wait, it seemed, until that command
should be accomplished. Warrender went away with a most perplexed and
troubled mind. He was half pleased, underneath all