fe forgot her art of pleasing. She
shrank from him with a faint cry of aversion, and got into her carriage
unaided. Mary Wells followed her.

Mr. Salter was unwilling to receive this rebuff. He followed, and said,
"The clothes shall be given, with any message you may think fit to
intrust to me."

Lady Bassett turned away sharply from him, and said to Mary Wells,
"Tell him to drive home. Home! I have none now. Its light is torn from
me."

The carriage drove away as she uttered these piteous words.

She cried at intervals all the way home; and could hardly drag herself
upstairs to bed.

Mr. Angelo called next day with bad news. Not a magistrate would move a
finger against Mr. Bassett: he had the law on his side. Sir Charles was
evidently insane; it was quite proper he should be put in security
before he did some mischief to himself or Lady Bassett. "They say, why
was he hidden for two months, if there was not something very wrong?"

Lady Bassett ordered the carriage and paid several calls, to counteract
this fatal impression.

She found, to her horror, she might as well try to move a rock. There
was plenty of kindness and pity; but the moment she began to assure
them her husband was not insane she was met with the dead silence of
polite incredulity. One or two old friends went further, and said, "My
dear, we are told he could not be taken away without two doctors'
certificates: now, consider, they must know better than you. Have
patience, and let them cure him."

Lady Bassett withdrew her friendship on the spot from two ladies for
contradicting her on such a subject; she returned home almost wild
herself.

In the village her carriage was stopped by a woman with her hair all
flying, who told her, in a lamentable voice, that Squire Bassett had
sent nine men to prison for taking Sir Charles's part and ill-treating
his captors.

"My lawyer shall defend them at my expense," said Lady Bassett, with a
sigh.

At last she got home, and went up to her own room, and there was Mary
Wells waiting to dress her.

She tottered in, and sank into a chair. But, after this temporary
exhaustion, came a rising tempest of passion; her eyes roved, her
fingers worked, and her heart seemed to come out of her in words of
fire. "I have not a friend in all the county. That villain has only to
say 'Mad,' and all turn from me, as if an angel of truth had said
'Criminal.' We have no friend but one, and she is my servant. Now go
and env