is well done,' she stammered. 'Why should I not?'

'There's no reason why,' he said. 'What are you going to do with the
monstrous thing? It can't stand here for ever.'

'I don't wish it,' she said. 'I'll find a place.'

In her boudoir there was a deep recess, and while the Earl was absent
from home for a few days in the following week, she hired joiners from
the village, who under her directions enclosed the recess with a panelled
door. Into the tabernacle thus formed she had the statue placed,
fastening the door with a lock, the key of which she kept in her pocket.

When her husband returned he missed the statue from the gallery, and,
concluding that it had been put away out of deference to his feelings,
made no remark. Yet at moments he noticed something on his lady's face
which he had never noticed there before. He could not construe it; it
was a sort of silent ecstasy, a reserved beatification. What had become
of the statue he could not divine, and growing more and more curious,
looked about here and there for it till, thinking of her private room, he
went towards that spot. After knocking he heard the shutting of a door,
and the click of a key; but when he entered his wife was sitting at work,
on what was in those days called knotting. Lord Uplandtowers' eye fell
upon the newly-painted door where the recess had formerly been.

'You have been carpentering in my absence then, Barbara,' he said
carelessly.

'Yes, Uplandtowers.'

'Why did you go putting up such a tasteless enclosure as that--spoiling
the handsome arch of the alcove?'

'I wanted more closet-room; and I thought that as this was my own
apartment--'

'Of course,' he returned. Lord Uplandtowers knew now where the statue of
young Willowes was.

One night, or rather in the smallest hours of the morning, he missed the
Countess from his side. Not being a man of nervous imaginings he fell
asleep again before he had much considered the matter, and the next
morning had forgotten the incident. But a few nights later the same
circumstances occurred. This time he fully roused himself; but before he
had moved to search for her, she entered the chamber in her
dressing-gown, carrying a candle, which she extinguished as she
approached, deeming him asleep. He could discover from her breathing
that she was strangely moved; but not on this occasion either did he
reveal that he had seen her. Presently, when she had lain down,
affecting to wake, h