ent."

"Accident!" I exclaimed. "What, another? Lately? Stairs again?"

"No, sir; the drawing-room window this time," answered the butler, with
semi-tipsy gravity. "Her ladyship's sight having been defective of late
years, occasions her some difficulty in calculating distances.
Three days ago, her ladyship went to look out of the window, and,
miscalculating the distance--" Here the butler, with a fine dramatic
feeling for telling a story, stopped just before the climax of the
narrative, and looked me in the face with an expression of the deepest
sympathy.

"And miscalculating the distance?" I repeated impatiently.

"Put her head through a pane of glass," said the butler, in a soft
voice suited to the pathetic nature of the communication. "By great
good fortune her ladyship had been dressed for the day, and had got her
turban on. This saved her ladyship's head. But her ladyship's neck, sir,
had a very narrow escape. A bit of the broken glass wounded it within
half a quarter of an inch of the carotty artery" (meaning, probably,
carotid); "I heard the medical gentleman say, and shall never forget
it to my dying day, that her ladyship's life had been saved by a
hair-breadth. As it was, the blood lost (the medical gentleman said
that, too, sir) was accidentally of the greatest possible benefit,
being apoplectic, in the way of clearing out the system. Her ladyship's
appetite has been improved ever since--the carriage is out airing of
her at this very moment--likewise, she takes the footman's arm and the
maid's up and downstairs now, which she never would hear of before this
last accident. 'I feel ten years younger' (those were her ladyship's own
words to me, this very day), 'I feel ten years younger, Vokins, since I
broke the drawing-room window.' And her ladyship looks it!"

No doubt. Here was the key to Mr. Batterbury's letter of forgiveness.
His chance of receiving the legacy looked now further off than ever;
he could not feel the same confidence as his wife in my power of living
down any amount of starvation and adversity; and he was, therefore,
quite ready to take the first opportunity of promoting my precious
personal welfare and security, of which he could avail himself, without
spending a farthing of money. I saw it all clearly, and admired the
hereditary toughness of the Malkinshaw family more gratefully than ever.
What should I do? Go to Duskydale? Why not? It didn't matter to me where
I went, now that I had no