y, when she had him to begin with, so why she should
pine for his misdeeds now, is more than I can compass."

It was on a clear, fragrant evening in June, when the world was all in
flower, that a whispering, and pulling of skirts and sleeves, and
throwing up of hands and eyes, arose among the servants at Ashpound, at
a sight that was seen there. The servants' hall were gathered secretly
at a side-door and a lobby-window, and were watching Mrs. Gervase
Norgate feeling her way, like a blind woman, her tall figure bent down,
crouched together, swaying, along the pleached alley from the garden.

One or two of the more sensitive of the women covered their faces and
wrung their hands. Old Miles tugged at his tufts of red hair and smote
his hands together distractedly. The new shame was too open for
concealment; he could only cry, "God ha' mercy; there is not one to mend
another; what will we do?"

As living among men and women given up to delusions begets delusions in
rational minds with a dire infectiousness, so living with Gervase
Norgate, and day by day regarding the evil which could not be stayed,
Diana had caught the fell disease.

A whisper of the culminating misfortunes of Ashpound spread abroad like
wild-fire, soon ceased to be a whisper, and became a loud scandal; and
Diana lost her credit as summarily as she had acquired it. It was--"That
wretched Mrs. Gervase Norgate came of an evil stock, though drinking was
not Mr. Baring's vice. They were an ill-fated race, these Barings, with
a curse--the curse of ruined men--upon them. Who knew, indeed, but if
poor Gervase Norgate, come of honest people at least, had gone into
another family--one which he could have respected, which could have
shown him a good example and remonstrated with him with authority--he
might have been reclaimed?"

About the middle of summer there came a seasonably rainy period, such as
frequently precedes a fine harvest. But Gervase Norgate was so ailing
that he could not go out and look at his fields, where the corn in the
ear was filling rarely, and the growth of second clover was knee-deep.
He was forced to keep the house. He loathed food, and his sleep had
become a horror to him. He had fits of deadly sickness and of shaking
like an aspen. His only resource, all the life that was left to him, was
to be found in his cellar; and even Miles, seeing his master's
extremity, brought out and piteously pressed the brandy upon him.

Gervase's cronie