deal of trouble in her early
life, and I believe the memory of it comes back upon her sometimes in
her dreams, and gets the better of her.'

'If it was memory that wrung that agonised shriek from her just now, her
recollections of the past must be very terrible.'

'Ah, sir, there is a skeleton in every house,' answered James Steadman,
gravely.

This was exactly what Maulevrier had said under the yew trees which
Wordsworth planted.

'Good-night, sir,' said Steadman.

'Good-night. You are sure that Lady Maulevrier may be left safely--that
there is no fear of illness of any kind?'

'No, sir. It was only a bad dream. Good-night, sir.'

Steadman went back to his own quarters. Mr. Hammond heard him draw the
bolts of the swing door, thus cutting off all communication with the
corridor.

The eight-day clock on the staircase struck two as Mr. Hammond returned
to his room, even less inclined for sleep than when he left it. Strange,
that nocturnal disturbance of a mind which seemed so tranquil in the
day. Or was that tranquillity only a mask which her ladyship wore before
the world: and was the bitter memory of events which happened forty
years ago still a source of anguish to that highly strung nature?

'There are some minds which cannot forget,' John Hammond said to
himself, as he meditated upon her ladyship's character and history. 'The
story of her husband's crime may still be fresh in her memory, though it
is only a tradition for the outside world. His crime may have involved
some deep wrong done to herself, some outrage against her love and faith
as a wife. One of the stories Maulevrier spoke of the other day was of a
wicked woman's influence upon the governor--a much more likely story
than that of any traffic in British interests or British honour, which
would have been almost impossible for a man in Lord Maulevrier's
position. If the scandal was of a darker kind--a guilty wife--the
mysterious disappearance of a husband--the horror of the thing may have
made a deeper impression on Lady Maulevrier than even her nearest and
dearest dream of: and that superb calm which she wears like a royal
mantle may be maintained at the cost of struggles which tear her
heart-strings. And then at night, when the will is dormant, when the
nervous system is no longer ruled by the power of waking intelligence,
the old familiar agony returns, the hated images flash back upon the
brain, and in proportion to the fineness of the tempera