e looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her
with the calmness of a leave-taking in the pressroom--the serenity that
overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable.

"I am glad to see you, Bale," she began, hardly knowing what she said,
and she stopped short.

"You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission," he resumed; "you find
all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live
to see to-morrow's sun."

"Come," she said, startled, "you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have no
right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel and
wicked to trifle with your wife's feelings. If you are under a delusion,
you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease to talk of
it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I am very
certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still better the
day following."

"No, I'm not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no
fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that
before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I,
who am talking to you, shall be dead."

Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her.

"I have told you what I think and believe," she said vehemently. "I
think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your
whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you
have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How _can_ you inflict
all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she
does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams?"

"Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If to-morrow I can
hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your
sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her
sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It
would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power
to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped."

He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to
say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was
determined in favour of silence.

He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her.

CHAPTER XXIX

Dr. Torvey's Opinion

When Lady Walsingham reached the head of the stairs, she met her maid,
and from her learned that her s