l.'

'One moment, Robert--the child?'

'Sent to a nurse, when every sound was agony.'

He stepped into the sick room, and brought out Mrs. Murrell, who began
with a curtsey, but eagerly pressed Lucilla's offered hand. Subdued by
sorrow and watching, she was touchingly meek and resigned, enduring with
the patience of real faith, and only speaking to entreat that Mr. Fulmort
would pray with her for her poor child. Never had Lucilla so prayed; and
ere she had suppressed her tears, ere rising from her knees, Robert was
gone.

She spent the ensuing hours of that summer evening, seated in the
arm-chair, barely moving, listening to the ticking of the clock, and the
thunder of the streets, and at times hearkening to the sounds in the
inner chamber, the wanderings feebler and more rare, but the fearful
convulsions more frequent, seeming, as it were, to be tearing away the
last remnant of life. These moments of horror-struck suspense were the
only breaks, save when Owen rushed out unable to bear the sight, and
stood, with hidden face, in such absorption of distress as to be
unconscious of her awe-struck attempts to obtain his attention, or when
Mrs. Murrell came to fetch something, order her maid, or relieve herself
by a few sad words to her guest. Gratified by the eager sisterly
acknowledgment of poor Edna, she touched Lucilla deeply by speaking of
her daughter's fondness for Miss Sandbrook, grief at having given cause
for being thought ungrateful, and assurances that the secret never could
have been kept had they met the day after the _soiree_. Many had been
the poor thing's speculations how Miss Sandbrook would receive her
marriage, but always with confidence in her final mercy and justice: and
when Lucilla heard of the prolonged wretchedness, the hope deferred, the
evil reports and suspicions of neighbours and lodgers, the failing
health, and cruel disappointment, and looked round at the dismal little
stifling dungeon where this fair and gifted being had pined and sunk
beneath slander and desertion, hot tears of indignation filled her eyes,
and with fingers clenching together, she said, 'Oh that I had known it
sooner! Edna was right. I will be the person to see justice done to
her!'

And when left alone she cast about for the most open mode of proclaiming
Edna Murrell her brother's honoured wife, and her own beloved sister.
The more it mortified the Charterises the better!

By the time Robert came back, the sole