t was not a pleasant meal. If Dare had been a shade less ill, he must
have noticed the marked coldness of Evelyn's manner, and how Ralph
good-naturedly endeavored to make up for it by double helpings of soup
and fish, which he was quite unable to eat. Charles and Lady Mary were
never congenial spirits at the best of times, and to-night was not the
best. That lady, after feebly provoking the attack, as usual, sustained
some crushing defeats, mainly couched in the language of Scripture,
which was, as she felt with Christian indignation, turning her own
favorite weapon against herself, as possibly Charles thought she
deserved, for putting such a weapon to so despicable a use.

"I really don't know," she said, tremulously, afterwards in the
drawing-room, "what Charles will come to if he goes on like this. I
don't mind"--venomously--"his tone towards myself. That I do not regard;
but his entire want of reverence for the Church and apostolic
succession; his profane remarks about vestments; in short, his entire
attitude towards religion gives me the gravest anxiety."

In the dining-room the conversation flagged, and Charles was beginning
to wonder whether he could make some excuse and bolt, when a servant
came in with a note for him. It was from the doctor in D----, and ran as
follows:

"DEAR SIR,

"I have just seen (6.30 P.M.) Stephens again. I found him in a
state of the wildest excitement, and he implored me to send you
word that he wanted to see you again. He seemed so sure that you
would go if you knew he wished it, that I have commissioned
Sergeant Brown's boy to take this. He wished me to say 'there
was something more.' If there is any further confession he
desires to make, he has not much time to do it in. I did not
expect he would have lasted till now. As it is, he is going
fast. Indeed, I hardly think you will be in time to see him; but
I promised to give you this message.

Yours faithfully,
R. WHITE."

"I must go," Charles said, throwing the note across to Ralph. "Give the
boy half a crown, will you? I suppose I may take Othello?" and before
Ralph had mastered the contents of the note, and begun to fumble for a
half-crown, Charles was saddling Othello himself, without waiting for
the groom, and in a few minutes was clattering over the stones out of
the yard.

There was just light enough to ride by, and he rode hard. What was
it--what could it be that Raym