diterranean lay
between Scotland and Ireland? Miss Jevons wanted to give you bread and
water for three days. How's that prig Graves?" he added rather abruptly.

Anne Ashton laughed, blushing slightly. "He is just as you left him; very
painstaking and efficient in the parish, and all that, but, oh, so stupid
in some things! Is the map right?"

"Yes, it's right. I'll help you with the rest. If Dr. Ashton--"

"Why, Val! Is it you? I heard Lord Hartledon had come down."

Percival Elster turned. A lad of seventeen had come bounding in at
the window. It was Dr. Ashton's eldest living son, Arthur. Anne was
twenty-one. A son, who would have been nineteen now, had died; and
there was another, John, two years younger than Arthur.

"How are you, Arthur, boy?" cried Val. "Edward hasn't come. Who told you
he had?"

"Mother Gum. I have just met her."

"She told you wrong. He will be down to-morrow. Is that Dr. Ashton?"

Attracted perhaps by the voices, Dr. and Mrs. Ashton, who were then out
on the lawn, came round to the window. Percival Elster grasped a hand of
each, and after a minute or two's studied coldness, the doctor thawed. It
was next to impossible to resist the genial manner, the winning
attractions of the young man to his face. But Dr. Ashton could not
approve of his line of conduct; and had sore doubts whether he had done
right in allowing him to become the betrothed of his dearly-loved
daughter.

CHAPTER IV.

THE COUNTESS-DOWAGER.

The guests had arrived, and Hartledon was alive with bustle and lights.
The first link in the chain, whose fetters were to bind more than one
victim, had been forged. Link upon link; a heavy, despairing burden no
hand could lift; a burden which would have to be borne for the most part
in dread secrecy and silence.

Mirrable had exerted herself to good purpose, and Mirrable was capable
of it when occasion needed. Help had been procured from Calne, and on
the Friday evening several of the Hartledon servants arrived from the
town-house. "None but a young man would have put us to such a rout,"
quoth Mirrable, in her privileged freedom; "my lord and lady would have
sent a week's notice at least." But when Lord Hartledon arrived on the
Saturday evening with his guests, Mirrable was ready for them.

She stood at the entrance to receive them, in her black-silk gown and
lace cap, its broad white-satin strings falling on either side the bunch
of black ringlets that shaded her thi