che uttered a little scream. Lady Enville laughed her soft, musical
laugh--the first thing which had originally attracted her husband's
fancy to her, eighteen years before.

"I marvel wherefore!" she said, laying down the play, and taking up her
pomander--a ball of scented drugs, enclosed in a golden network, which
hung from her girdle by a gold chain.

"Wherefore?" repeated Sir Thomas more warmly. "For plucking my fairest
flower, when I had granted unto him but shelter in my garden-house!"

"He has not plucked it yet," said Lady Enville, handling the pomander
delicately, so that too much scent should not escape at once.

"He hath done as ill," replied Sir Thomas shortly.

Lady Enville calmly inhaled the fragrance, as if nothing more serious
than itself were on her mind. Blanche sat still, playing with her
chain, but looking troubled and afraid, and casting furtive glances at
her father, who was pacing slowly up and down the room.

"Orige," he said suddenly, "can Blanche make her ready to leave home?--
and how soon?"

Blanche looked up fearfully.

"What wis I, Sir Thomas?" languidly answered the lady. "I reckon she
could be ready in a month or so. Where would you have her go?"

"A month! I mean to-night."

"To-night, Sir Thomas! 'Tis not possible. Why, she hath scantly a gown
fit to show."

"She must go, nathless, Orige. And it shall be to the parsonage. They
will do it, I know. And Clare must go with her."

"The parsonage!" said Lady Enville contemptuously. "Oh ay, she can go
there any hour. They should scantly know whether she wear satin or
grogram. Call for Clare, if you so desire it--she must see to the
gear."

"Canst not thou, Orige?"

"I, Sir Thomas!--with my feeble health!"

And Lady Enville looked doubly languid as she let her head sink back
among the cushions. Sir Thomas looked at her for a minute, sighed
again, and then, opening the door, called out two or three names.
Barbara answered, and he bade her "Send hither Mistress Clare."

Clare was rather startled when she presented herself at the boudoir
door. Blanche, she saw, was in trouble of some kind; Lady Enville
looked annoyed, after her languid fashion; and the grave, sad look of
Sir Thomas was an expression as new to Clare as it had been to the
others.

"Clare," said her step-father, "I am about to entrust thee with a
weighty matter. Are thy shoulders strong enough to bear such burden?"

"I will do my best, Father,"