.

For a space of reckonable time there was complete silence. Then once
more a blast of wind tore up from the south-west, rain shattered
against the window, and the house vibrated to the shock.

_Chapter XIV_

I

As the date approached Maggie felt her anxieties settle down, like a
fire, from turbulence to steady flame. On the Sunday she had with real
difficulty kept it to herself, and the fringe of the storm of wind and
rain that broke over Herefordshire in the evening had not been
reassuring. Yet on one thing her will kept steady hold, and that was
that Mrs. Baxter must not be consulted. No conceivable good could
result, and there might even be harm: either the old lady would be too
much or not enough concerned: she might insist on Laurie's return to
Stantons, or might write him a cheering letter encouraging him to
amuse himself in any direction that he pleased. So Maggie passed the
evening in fits of alternate silence and small conversation, and
succeeded in making Mrs. Baxter recommend a good long night.

Monday morning, however, broke with a cloudless sky, an air like wine,
and the chatter of birds; and by the time that Maggie went to look at
the crocuses immediately before breakfast, she was all but at her ease
again. Enough, however, of anxiety remained to make her hurry out to
the stable-yard when she heard the postman on his way to the back
door.

There was one letter for her, in Mr. Cathcart's handwriting; and she
opened it rather hastily as she turned in again to the garden.

It was reassuring. It stated that the writer had approached--that was
the word--Mr. Baxter, though unfortunately with ill-success, and that
he proposed on the following day--the letter was dated on Saturday
evening--also to approach Lady Laura Bethell. He felt fairly
confident, he said, that his efforts would succeed in postponing, at
any rate, Mr. Baxter's visit to Lady Laura; and in that case he would
write further as to what was best to be done. In the meanwhile Miss
Deronnais was not to be in the least anxious. Whatever happened, it
was extremely improbable that one visit more or less to a _seance_
would carry any great harm: it was the habit, rather than the act,
that was usually harmful to the nervous system. And the writer begged
to remain her obedient servant.

Maggie's spirits rose with a bound. How extraordinarily foolish she
had been, she told herself, to have been filled with such forebodings
last night! It