wallered up,' observed Hezzy Biles. 'His goings-on made her
miserable till 'a died, and if I were the woman I'd have my randys now.
He ought to have bequeathed to her our young gent, Mr. St. Cleeve, as
some sort of amends. I'd up and marry en, if I were she; since her
downfall has brought 'em quite near together, and made him as good as she
in rank, as he was afore in bone and breeding.'

'D'ye think she will?' asked Sammy Blore. 'Or is she meaning to enter
upon a virgin life for the rest of her days?'

'I don't want to be unreverent to her ladyship; but I really don't think
she is meaning any such waste of a Christian carcase. I say she's rather
meaning to commit flat matrimony wi' somebody or other, and one young
gentleman in particular.'

'But the young man himself?'

'Planned, cut out, and finished for the delight of 'ooman!'

'Yet he must be willing.'

'That would soon come. If they get up this tower ruling plannards
together much longer, their plannards will soon rule them together, in my
way o' thinking. If she've a disposition towards the knot, she can soon
teach him.'

'True, true, and lawfully. What before mid ha' been a wrong desire is
now a holy wish!'

The scales fell from Swithin St. Cleeve's eyes as he heard the words of
his neighbours. How suddenly the truth dawned upon him; how it
bewildered him, till he scarcely knew where he was; how he recalled the
full force of what he had only half apprehended at earlier times,
particularly of that sweet kiss she had impressed on his lips when she
supposed him dying,--these vivid realizations are difficult to tell in
slow verbiage. He could remain there no longer, and with an electrified
heart he retreated up the spiral.

He found Lady Constantine half way to the top, standing by a loop-hole;
and when she spoke he discovered that she was almost in tears. 'Are they
gone?' she asked.

'I fear they will not go yet,' he replied, with a nervous fluctuation of
manner that had never before appeared in his bearing towards her.

'What shall I do?' she asked. 'I ought not to be here; nobody knows that
I am out of the house. Oh, this is a mistake! I must go home somehow.'

'Did you hear what they were saying?'

'No,' said she. 'What is the matter? Surely you are disturbed? What
did they say?'

'It would be the exaggeration of frankness in me to tell you.'

'Is it what a woman ought not to be made acquainted with?'

'It is, in this case. It