ieve you are speaking of the failure of Kent & Green!
It's not _that_, Mr. Archibald. They won't affect us much; and there'll
be a dividend, report runs."

"What is it, then?"

"Then you have not heard it, sir! I am glad that I'm in time. It might
not be well for you to have seen it without a word of preparation, Mr.
Archibald."

"If you have not gone demented, you will tell me what you mean, Dill,
and leave me to my letters," cried Mr. Carlyle, wondering excessively at
his sober, matter-of-fact clerk's words and manner.

Old Dill put his hands upon the _Times_ newspaper.

"It's here, Mr. Archibald, in the column of deaths; the first on the
list. Please, prepare yourself a little before you look at it."

He shuffled out quickly, and Mr. Carlyle as quickly unfolded the paper.
It was, as old Dill said, the first on the list of deaths:

"At Cammere, in France, on the 18th inst., Isabel Mary, only child of
William, late Earl of Mount Severn."

Clients called; Mr. Carlyle's bell did not ring; an hour or two passed,
and old Dill protested that Mr. Carlyle was engaged until he could
protest no longer. He went in, deprecatingly. Mr. Carlyle sat yet with
the newspaper before him, and the letters unopened at his elbow.

"There are one or two who _will_ come in, Mr. Archibald--who _will_ see
you; what am I to say?"

Mr. Carlyle stared at him for a moment, as if his wits had been in the
next world. Then he swept the newspaper from before him, and was the
calm, collected man of business again.

As the news of Lady Isabel's marriage had first come in the knowledge
of Lord Mount Severn through the newspapers, so singular to say did the
tidings of her death. The next post brought him the letter, which his
wife had tardily forwarded. But, unlike Lady Mount Severn, he did not
take her death as entirely upon trust; he thought it possible the letter
might have been dispatched without its having taken place; and he deemed
it incumbent on him to make inquiries. He wrote immediately to the
authorities of the town, in the best French he could muster, asking for
particulars, and whether she was really dead.

He received, in due course a satisfactory answer; satisfactory in so
far as that it set his doubts at rest. He had inquired after her by her
proper name, and title, "La Dame Isabelle Vane," and as the authorities
could find none of the survivors owning that name, they took it for
granted she was dead. They wrote him word that