Clara, if it is only to show you how much a
woman can be worshipped, and yet despised. Yes, yes, we will go and hear
Olympia sing."

But Clara was not to be so easily appeased. She gathered up her worsted
and embroidery, huddled them together in her work-basket and went away,
refusing to let Closs carry her basket, or even walk by her side.

While he stood watching the haughty little thing, a voice from the other
side of the cedar tree arrested him. He turned, and saw a face that had
once been familiar, but which he could not at the moment recognize.

The woman came forward with a startled look. She was evidently past
thirty, and had an air of independence, which he had never seen in an
English domestic.

She came closer, their eyes met, and he knew that it was Maggie Casey,
the chambermaid who had led him up to that death-chamber, the last time
he visited it. She had recognized him from the first.

"Mr. Hepworth," she said, in a low voice: "Mr. Hepworth!"

Closs had almost been prepared for this, and did not allow himself to be
taken by surprise.

"You have got half the name right at any rate," he said, quietly;
"Hepworth Closs, and you have it complete. You never could have heard it
in full, when you lived in New York, I fancy."

"Closs, Closs? No, I never heard that name given to you; but it once
belonged to Lady Hope, I remember."

"And of course, naturally belongs to her brother, my good girl," said
Closs, with a quiet smile.

"Her brother? Whose brother? Not the Lady that was--"

The girl broke off, and her voice died in a low whisper.

"No, no!" broke in the man, with sudden impatience; "that was a terrible
thing, which you and I will be all the happier in forgetting. The poor
woman who did it is suffering a hard penalty, if she is not in fact
dead."

"Yes, sir, yes; but how came her grandchild here? How came you there?"

"Hush!" said Hepworth, in a voice of command, that startled the woman;
"who gave you authority to ask such questions? What can you know about
the old woman's grandchild?"

"I know that the young lady who left you ten minutes ago was the little
girl they called her grandchild. I saw the coroner holding the poor
little thing up to look on the dead lady. I think that lady was her
mother."

"And have told her so, perhaps?"

"No; I never did, and I never will. She called the old woman, Yates,
grandmother; but I know better than that, for I know where her
grandchild is this very