inking often of the lonely old lady whose hands had last
been busied with the same task. This grandmother of her husband seemed
to have been the only relation with whom he had ever been on intimate
terms, and Anastasia's interest was quickened by an excellent portrait
of her as a young girl by Lawrence, which hung in the long gallery.
Could the old lady have revisited for once the scene of her labours, she
would have had no reason to be dissatisfied with her successor.
Anastasia looked distinguished enough as she sat at her work-frame, with
the skeins of coloured silks in her lap and the dark-brown hair waved on
her high forehead; and a dress of a rich yellow velvet might have
supported the illusion that a portrait of some bygone lady of the
Blandamers had stepped down out of its frame.

That evening her instinct told her that something was amiss, in spite of
all her husband's self-command. Something very annoying must have
happened among the grooms, gardeners, gamekeepers, or other dependents;
he had been riding about to set the matter straight, and it was no doubt
of a nature that he did not care to mention to her.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

Westray passed a day of painful restlessness. He had laid his hand to a
repugnant business, and the burden of it was too heavy for him to bear.
He felt the same gnawing anxiety, that is experienced by one whom
doctors have sentenced to a lethal operation. One man may bear himself
more bravely in such circumstances than another, but by nature every man
is a coward; and the knowledge that the hour is approaching, when the
surgeon's knife shall introduce him to a final struggle of life and
death cannot be done away. So it was with Westray; he had undertaken a
task for which he was not strong enough, and only high principle, and a
sense of moral responsibility, kept him from panic and flight. He went
to the church in the morning, and endeavoured to concentrate attention
on his work, but the consciousness of what was before him would not be
thrust aside. The foreman-mason saw that his master's thoughts were
wandering, and noticed the drawn expression on his face.

In the afternoon his restlessness increased, and he wandered listlessly
through the streets and narrow entries of the town, till he found
himself near nightfall at that place by the banks of the Cull, where the
organist had halted on the last evening of his life. He stood leaning
over the iron railing, and looked at