red into the kitchen. Ethel and Milly departed, a little scared,
a little regretful, but inspirited by the dreadful charm and fascination
of the whole inexplicable adventure.

'Aunt Hannah's had another attack, depend on it,' said John, 'that's
it.'

'I hope not,' Leonora murmured perfunctorily. Now that she had broken
the spell of futile inactivity which the discovery of Uncle Meshach's
body seemed for a few dire moments to have laid upon them, she was more
at ease.

'I fancy you'd better go down there yourself as soon as the doctor's
been,' John continued. 'You're perhaps more likely to be useful there
than here. What do you think?'

She looked at him under her eyelids, saying nothing, and reading all his
mind. He had obstinately determined that Uncle Meshach was dead, and he
was striving to conceal both his satisfaction on that account and his
rapidly growing anxiety as to the condition of Aunt Hannah. His terrible
lack of frankness, that instinct for the devious and the underhand which
governed his entire existence, struck her afresh and seemed to devastate
her heart. She felt that she could have tolerated in her husband any
vice with less effort than that one vice which was specially his, that
vice so contemptible and odious, so destructive of every noble and
generous sentiment. Her silent, measured indignation fed itself on
almost nothing--on a mere word, a mere inflection of his voice, a single
transient gleam of his guilty eye. And though she was right by unerring
intuition, John, could he have seen into her soul, might have been
excused for demanding, 'What have I said, what have I done, to deserve
this scorn?'

Rose returned, bearing materials for a fire; she had changed her
Liberty dress for the dark severe frock of her studious hours, and she
had an irritating air of being perfectly equal to the occasion. John,
having thrown off his ulster, endeavoured to assist her in lighting the
fire, but she at once proved to him that his incapacity was a hindrance
to her; whereupon he wondered what in the name of goodness Carpenter and
the doctor were doing to be so long. Leonora began to tidy the room,
which bore witness to the regardless frenzy of anticipation with which
its occupants had cast aside the soiled commonplaces of life six hours
before.

'But look!' Rose cried suddenly, examining Uncle Meshach anew, after the
fire was lighted.

'What?' John and Leonora demanded together, rushing to the bed.

'Hi