tion?"

"Squibs, sir!" cried Mark, indignantly.

"Burns wrote squibs," said the curate, mildly.

Mark made no answer, but again knocked at the door.

This time, a man, whose face, even seen by the starlight, was much
flushed, presented himself at the threshold.

"Mr. Morgan!" exclaimed the curate, in benevolent alarm; "no illness
here, I hope?"

"Cott! it is you, Mr. Dale!--Come in, come in; I want a word with you.
But who the teuce are these people?"

"Sir," said Mark, pushing through the doorway, "my name is Fairfield,
and my wife is Mr. Avenel's daughter!"

"Oh, Jane--and her baby too!--Cood! cood! Come in; but be quiet, can't
you? Still, still--still as death!"

The party entered, the door closed; the moon rose, and shone calmly on
the pale silent house, on the sleeping flowers of the little garden, on
the old pollard with its hollow core. The horse in the taxed cart dozed
unheeded; the light still at times flitted across the upper windows.
These were the only signs of life, except when a bat, now and then
attracted by the light that passed across the windows, brushed against
the panes, and then, dipping downwards, struck up against the nose of
the slumbering horse, and darted merrily after the moth that fluttered
round the raven's nest in the old pollard.

CHAPTER XVIII.

All that day Harley L'Estrange had been more than usually mournful and
dejected. Indeed, the return to scenes associated with Nora's presence
increased the gloom that had settled on his mind since he had lost sight
and trace of her. Audley, in the remorseful tenderness he felt for his
injured friend, had induced L'Estrange towards evening to leave the
Park, and go into a district some miles off, on pretence that he
required Harley's aid there to canvass certain important outvoters: the
change of scene might rouse him from his reveries. Harley himself was
glad to escape from the guests at Lansmere. He readily consented to go.
He would not return that night. The outvoters lay remote and scattered,
he might be absent for a day or two. When Harley was gone, Egerton
himself sank into deep thought. There was rumour of some unexpected
opposition. His partisans were alarmed and anxious. It was clear that
the Lansmere interest, if attacked, was weaker than the earl would
believe; Egerton might lose his election. If so, what would become of
him? How support his wife, whose return to him he always counted on, and
whom it would then become