Can you deny what I say?"

"No."

"'Yes!' 'No!' Is that the way to answer me when I am so distressed and
so anxious about you?"

"I am sorry I spoke as I did, Lucy. We look at some subjects in very
different ways. I don't dispute, dear, that yours is the reasonable
view."

"You don't dispute?" retorted Mrs. Crayford, warmly. "No! you do what
is worse--you believe in your own opinion; you persist in your own
conclusion--with the newspaper before you! Do you, or do you not,
believe the newspaper?"

"I believe in what I saw last night."

"In what you saw last night! You, an educated woman, a clever woman,
believing in a vision of your own fancy--a mere dream! I wonder you are
not ashamed to acknowledge it!"

"Call it a dream if you like, Lucy. I have had other dreams at other
times--and I have known them to be fulfilled."

"Yes!" said Mrs. Crayford. "For once in a way they may have been
fulfilled, by chance--and you notice it, and remember it, and pin your
faith on it. Come, Clara, be honest!--What about the occasions when the
chance has been against you, and your dreams have not been fulfilled?
You superstitious people are all alike. You conveniently forget when
your dreams and your presentiments prove false. For my sake, dear, if
not for your own," she continued, in gentler and tenderer tones, "try
to be more reasonable and more hopeful. Don't lose your trust in the
future, and your trust in God. God, who has saved my husband, can save
Frank. While there is doubt, there is hope. Don't embitter my happiness,
Clara! Try to think as I think--if it is only to show that you love me."

She put her arm round the girl's neck, and kissed her. Clara returned
the kiss; Clara answered, sadly and submissively,

"I do love you, Lucy. I _will_ try."

Having answered in those terms, she sighed to herself, and said no more.
It would have been plain, only too plain, to far less observant eyes
than Mrs. Crayford's that no salutary impression had been produced on
her. She had ceased to defend her own way of thinking, she spoke of
it no more--but there was the terrible conviction of Frank's death at
Wardour's hands rooted as firmly as ever in her mind! Discouraged and
distressed, Mrs. Crayford left her, and walked back toward the house.

Chapter 15.

At the drawing-room window of the villa there appeared a polite little
man, with bright intelligent eyes, and cheerful sociable manners. Neatly
dressed in professional bla