then. I
have arranged to get her ladyship away to-night.'

'So late? After midnight?'

'Why not? She cannot stay in this small house--so near the dead. There
is a moon, and there is no snow falling, and we are within seven miles
of Fellside.'

The doctor had nothing further to say against the arrangement, although
such a drive seemed to him a somewhat wild and reckless proceeding. Mr.
Steadman's grave, self-possessed manner answered all doubts. Mr. Evans
filled in the certificate for the undertaker, drank a glass of hot
brandy and water, and remounted his nag, in nowise relishing his
midnight ride, but consoling himself with the reflection that he would
be handsomely paid for his trouble.

An hour later Lady Maulevrier's travelling carriage stood ready in the
stable yard, in the deep shadow of wall and gables. It was at Steadman's
order that the carriage waited for her ladyship at an obscure side door,
rather than in front of the inn. An east wind was blowing keenly along
the mountain road, and the careful Steadman was anxious his mistress
should not be exposed to that chilly blast.

There was some delay, and the four horses jingled their bits
impatiently, and then the door of the inn opened, a feeble light gleamed
in the narrow passage within, Steadman stood ready to assist her
ladyship, there was a bustle, a confusion of dark figures on the
threshold, a huddled mass of cloaks and fur wraps was lifted into the
carriage, the door was clapped to, the horses went clattering out of the
yard, turned sharply into the snowy road, and started at a swinging pace
towards the dark sullen bulk of Loughrigg Fell.

The moon was shining upon Elterwater in the valley yonder--the mountain
ridges, the deep gorges below those sullen heights, looked back where
the shadow of night enfolded them, but all along the snow-white road the
silver light shone full and clear, and the mountain way looked like a
path through fairyland.

CHAPTER V.

FORTY YEARS AFTER.

'What a horrid day!' said Lady Mary, throwing down her book with a yawn,
and looking out of the deep bay window into a world of mountain and lake
which was clouded over by a dense veil of rain and dull grey mist; such
rain as one sees only in a lake district, a curtain of gloom which shuts
off sky and distance, and narrows the world to one solitary dwelling,
suspended amidst cloud and water, like another ark in a new deluge.

Rain--such rain as makes out-of-door exe