me all. Give me the paper; I can read it—I
can, indeed."

She took it, and read it steadily through—
read it with the same horrible emotion, a
thousand times intensified, which had agitated the
faithful servant a few hours previously. Standing
by the bedside, Mrs. Brookes gazed upon
her pale, convulsed features, as she read, and
ever, as she saw the increasing agony which
they betrayed, she murmured in accents of
earnest entreaty:

"Don't, my dear, for God's sake, don't, not
for a moment, don't you believe it. He sold
the coat, depend upon it. It looks very bad,
very black and bad, but you may be sure there's
no truth in it. He sold the coat."

She spoke to deaf ears. When Mrs. Carruthers
had read the last line of the account of
the inquest on the body of the unknown man, the
paper dropped from her hand; she turned upon
the old nurse a face which, from that moment,
she never had the power to forget, and said:

"He wore it—I saw it on him on Friday,"
and the next moment slipped down among the
pillows, and lay as insensible as a stone.

The old woman gave no alarm, called for no
assistance, but silently and steadily applied
herself to recalling Mrs. Carruthers to consciousness.
She had no fear of interruption. Mr.
Carruthers invariably went direct to the
breakfast-room on returning from his morning tour
of inspection, and Clare would not visit Mrs.
Carruthers in her own apartment unasked. So
Mrs. Brookes set the windows and doors wide
open, and let the sweet morning air fan the
insensible face, while she applied all the remedies
at hand. At length Mrs. Carruthers sighed
deeply, opened her eyes, and raised her hand
to her forehead, where it came in contact with
the wet hair.

"Hush, my dear," said Mrs. Brookes, as she
made an almost inarticulate attempt to speak.
"Do not try to say anything yet. Lie quite
still, until you are better."

Mrs. Carruthers closed her eyes again and
kept silent. When, after an interval, she began
to look more life-like, the old woman said,
softly:

"You must not give way again like this, for
George's sake. I don't care about his wearing
the coat. I know it looks bad, but it is a
mistake, I am quite sure. Don't I know the boy
as well as you do, and maybe better, and don't
I know his tender heart, with all his wildness,
and that he never shed a fellow-creature's blood
in anger, or for any other reason. But it's
plain he is suspected—not he, for they don't
know him, thank God, but the man that wore
the coat, and we must warn him, and keep it
from master. Master would go mad, I think,
if anything like suspicion or disgrace came of
Master George, more than the disgrace he
thinks the poor boy's goings on already. You
must keep steady and composed, my dear, and
you must write to him. Are you listening to
me? Do you understand me?" asked the old
woman, anxiously, for Mrs. Carruthers's eyes
were wild and wandering, and her hand twitched
convulsively in her grasp.

"Yes, yes," she murmured, "but I tell you,
Ellen, he wore the coat—my boy wore the
coat."

"And I tell you, I don't care whether he
wore the coat or not," repeated Mrs. Brookes,
emphatically. "He can explain that, no doubt
of it; but he must be kept out of trouble, and
you must be kept out of trouble, and the only
way to do that, is to let him know what brought
the strange gentleman to Poynings, and what
he and master found out. Remember, he never
did this thing, but, my dear, he has been in
bad hands lately, you know that; for haven't
you suffered in getting him out of them, and I
don't say but that he may be mixed up with
them that did. I'm afraid, there can't be any
doubt of that, and he must be warned. Try
and think of what he told you about himself,
not only just now, but when he came here
before, and you will see some light, I am sure."

But Mrs. Carruthers could not think of
anything, could not remember anything, could see
no light. A deadly horrible conviction had seized
upon her, iron fingers clutched her heart, a faint
sickening terror held her captive, in body and
spirit; and as the old woman gazed at her, and
found her incapable of answering, the fear that
her mistress was dying then and there before
her eyes took possession of her. She folded
up the newspaper which had fallen from Mrs.
Carruthers's hand, upon the bed, replaced it in
her pocket, and rang the bell for Dixon.

"My mistress is very ill," she said, when
Dixon entered the room. "You had better go
and find master, and send him here. Tell him
to send for Dr. Munns at once."

"Dixon gave a frightened, sympathising
glance at the figure on the bed, over which the
old woman was bending with such kindly
solicitude, and then departed on her errand. She
found Mr. Carruthers still in the breakfast-room.
He was seated at the table, and held in his hand
a newspaper, from which he had evidently been
reading, when Dixon knocked at the door; for
he was holding it slightly aside, and poising his
gold eye-glass in the other hand, when the woman
entered. Mr. Carruthers was unaccustomed to
being disturbed, and he did not like it, so that
it was in a tone of some impatience that he said:

"Well, Dixon, what do you want?"

"If you please, sir," replied Dixon, hesitatingly,
"my mistress is not well."

"So I hear," returned her master; " she sent
word she did not mean to appear at breakfast."
He said it rather huffily, for not to appear at
breakfast was, in Mr. Carruthers's eyes, not to
have a well-regulated mind, and not to have a
well-regulated mind was very lamentable and
shocking indeed.

"Yes, sir," Dixon went on, "but I'm afraid
she's very ill indeed. She has been fainting
this long time, sir, and Mrs. Brookes can't bring
her to at all. She sent me to ask you to send
for Dr. Muuns at once, and will you have the
goodness to step up and see my mistress, sir?"