er.

'He is not keeping her away?'

'No, no. He is going back--he is not coming to her for some time.'

'Then what is detaining her--cruel, neglectful maid!'

'No, no, Thomas; she is-- She could not come.'

'How's that?'

Somehow the solemnity of these last moments of his gave him inquisitorial
power, and the too cold wife could not conceal from him the flight which
had taken place from King's-Hintock that night.

To her amazement, the effect upon him was electrical.

'What--Betty--a trump after all? Hurrah! She's her father's own maid!
She's game! She knew he was her father's own choice! She vowed that my
man should win! Well done, Bet!--haw! haw! Hurrah!'

He had raised himself in bed by starts as he spoke, and now fell back
exhausted. He never uttered another word, and died before the dawn.
People said there had not been such an ungenteel death in a good county
family for years.

* * * * *

Now I will go back to the time of Betty's riding off on the pillion
behind her lover. They left the park by an obscure gate to the east, and
presently found themselves in the lonely and solitary length of the old
Roman road now called Long-Ash Lane.

By this time they were rather alarmed at their own performance, for they
were both young and inexperienced. Hence they proceeded almost in
silence till they came to a mean roadside inn which was not yet closed;
when Betty, who had held on to him with much misgiving all this while,
felt dreadfully unwell, and said she thought she would like to get down.

They accordingly dismounted from the jaded animal that had brought them,
and were shown into a small dark parlour, where they stood side by side
awkwardly, like the fugitives they were. A light was brought, and when
they were left alone Betty threw off the cloak which had enveloped her.
No sooner did young Phelipson see her face than he uttered an alarmed
exclamation.

'Why, Lord, Lord, you are sickening for the small-pox!' he cried.

'Oh--I forgot!' faltered Betty. And then she informed him that, on
hearing of her husband's approach the week before, in a desperate attempt
to keep him from her side, she had tried to imbibe the infection--an act
which till this moment she had supposed to have been ineffectual,
imagining her feverishness to be the result of her excitement.

The effect of this discovery upon young Phelipson was overwhelming.
Better-seasoned men than he would not have been proof against it, a