sufferer, but for her antagonist, his wife. The butler, whose face fully corroborated the doctor's fears, offered no obstacle to her admittance. Conscious as he was of being the depository of a secret at present confined to the members of the household, and jealous of the approach of outsiders on an occasion so flattering to his self-importance, Mr. Cadman was no more able to withstand the allurements of beauty than his betters. 'Well, miss, I doubt whether her ladyship will be at liberty to see you, but both the young gentlemen are within, and also Mr. Gurdon.' 'I think I should like to speak with one of them just for a moment, Cadman,' she answered apologetically, as though all the information that could be required by any reasonable being had not been already placed at her disposal; whereupon he ushered her into the breakfast-room, where, late as it was, Mr. Gurdon was still discussing his morning meal. It was with no affectation of gloom that the young fellow imparted to her what little he had to tell of his host's illness. He was not only grateful to Sir Richard for his hospitality, but had a sincere liking for him, and he spoke as he felt upon the matter. 'You find me eating like a pig, Miss Clara, but one can't help one's swinish nature, and I can't tell you how sorry I am for what has happened.' I am very sure you are sorry, Mr. Gurdon.' 'Yes, indeed, and upon my own account also (which is swinish again), for with illness in the house I feel that a stranger and a sojourner like myself must needs be in the way here, and it grieves me to have to say good-bye to the many kind friends that I have found at Mirbridge.' 'But you must forgive me for saying that your going away will be a very poor return to them, Mr. Gurdon. It is when we are in trouble that friends are most needed, and just now you would be missed, I am certain, more than ever. You are not one to be inconvenienced because the domestic machinery is thrown out of gear a little.' 'Inconvenienced! Why, bless my soul, if I had to fry my own bacon for breakfast,' he replied, looking round upon the ample repast before him, 'it would not matter to me one penny.' Then think of what a relief it will be to Lady Trevor, engaged in her sad duties above stairs, to feel that she has a valued friend in the house, on whom she can rely, and who has always exercised-or tried to exercise-his influence for good.' Mr. Gurdon turned scarlet, not at the compliment, but at the allusion to Hugh Trevor which it involved. The friend who had introduced him to Mirbridge had now become less his friend than any of those he had found there, and this was mainly due to the efforts he had made 'to keep Hugh straight;' with some of them Miss Clara was doubtless acquainted; but of one of them-the one which had cost Mr. Gurdon most-she was certainly ignorant. 'If I could persuade myself that I could be of any real use to Lady Trevor, I should be happy indeed,' he answered gravely. She is full of trouble, poor soul.' He was thinking of how he had seen her that very morning, haggard, dishevelled, and as it had seemed to him despairing, creeping like an outcast into her own house. 'You mean she has other troubles, beside this one,' said Clara softly. 'Poor woman! I have often thought myself that she had something on her mind.' 'Oh, I know nothing of that,' said Mr. Gurdon hastily. 'She has not made a confidant of me in any way.' 'Perhaps not; but things do not easily escape you, I know. By-the-bye, were you right concerning that picture by Romney, about which she was so interested? Is it really an original, or a copy?' Pray do not ask me that question, Miss Clara,' he answered in confusion. Lady Trevor particularly requested me not to allude to the subject to anybody.' 'Then it seems she does confide in you, just a little,' said Clara, smiling. It was difficult to do otherwise than smile, so obvious and excessive was Mr. Gurdon's embarrassment. As a general rule, he was a miracle of prudence, but there was something in Clara Thorne that loosened the tongue of every man, and drew from him what he would have concealed from another. Especially was this the case when she showed any signs of sympathy, which were rare with her. 'Lady Trevor is fortunate indeed in having such a friend as you outside her own belongings,' continued the charmer, with a little sigh. 'Oh, Miss Clara, pray don't say that I mean, if it implies that I am not equally your friend also.' 'Well, I will at least say this much, that I do not think you would willingly do me a mischief, Mr. Gurdon.' 'A mischief! Good gracious! My dear Miss Clara, if I could advance your happiness in any way there is no sacrifice I would not make.' 'What, even if it involved offending some other friend ?' The obstacle in question was one indeed which he had lately more than once surmounted, with far less of personal interest for his motive than he felt in the present case. On the other hand, Mr. Gurdon was not perfectly straightforward in what he was saying. He knew quite well that what Clara was asking him for was his advocacy of her engagement to Hugh, and this, though he seemed to promise it, he could not give her. He salved his -conscience, however, with the phrase he had used, 'If I could advance your happiness.' for he had a firm conviction that the girl who married Hugh Trevor would bid good-bye to happiness at the church door. She was acting, he said to himself, like a child, who in her ignorance desires a sweetmeat that would not only be injurious to her, but even poisonous, and he was treating her like a child. Nevertheless, as she held out her hand to him, with something like tears of gratitude in her beautiful eyes, he took it with a pang of remorse. Engrossed by the same train of thought, they did not notice the entrance of Mr. Cadman, who took in the situation at a glance, and utterly misread it. 'There's another of them down on his knees to her, and no wonder,' was his silent reflection ere he delivered aloud the message with which he had been entrusted. 'My lady's love, Miss Clara, and would you kindly step up into the boudoir and see her for a few minutes.' Mr. Gurdon and Clara exchanged, involuntarily, significant glances, for though one can keep one's thoughts out of other people's hearing, one cannot always keep them out of their sight. 'I hope Lady Trevor will not consider my coming at such a time to be an intrusion,' observed Clara, with as indifferent an air as she could assume. 'Of course not; her wanting to see you is a proof with what friendly feelings she regards you,' answered Mr. Gurdon eagerly. Clara shook her head, and faintly smiled. 'You say all that you can to comfort me, Mr. Gurdon; will you do all that you can to help me?' This was only the old question, as he knew, put more directly; but what is the use of being on your guard with an adversary who breaks through your guard? Against that appealing look and tender tone he could only feebly strive. 'Your interests, dear Miss Clara," he murmured, 'will always be mine.' 'That is as much as to say you are a better judge of them than I am,' she answered earnestly. 'Pray, pray believe me, Mr. Gurdon, when I say that is not the case. What is moving your kind heart is the thought that so far as in you lies you will save a foolish girl from herself. If you were speaking to my sister it would be different, but in my case such tender fears are thrown away; I not only know my own mind, but my own strength.' What he would have said, had he been his own master, was: 'But you overrate it!' but with her hand upon his shoulder, and her pleading eyes looking into his own, his lips returned another reply. I will do anything to please you, Miss Clara.' 'A thousand thanks,' she murmured softly; 'you have always been my friend, I know, and henceforth you will be also my ally.' It was a bold stroke thus to have secured Mr. Gurdon's 'vote and influence' in a matter so delicate as her relations with Hugh Trevor, but it was one Clara had long meditated, and this was the first opportunity that had presented itself. She had always recognised the friendly familiarity with which his hostess treated the young painter, but, from what he had just now so undesignedly let fall, it was clear to her that his opinion had even greater weight than she had imagined. It was highly desirable that it should be thrown into her side of the scale, and worth some sacrifice of self-respect. Yet, thanks to the marvellous charm with which nature had endued her, Clara had lost nothing of dignity in Mr. Gurdon's eyes. The influence she had attributed to him was of course a compliment; but he had absolutely no vanity to be tickled by it. What had won him over to her cause was, as he honestly believed, the simple eloquence with which she had pleaded it. He would have been astonished and shocked had he recognised how greatly it had been supplemented by those dumb arguments with which Phryne of old convinced the Bench. With a jury of matrons, or an assembly of female judges in banco, it is probable that that young lady would have had less success; and it was not without some foreboding that she was about to plead the same cause over again before a Court by no means so favourable to her, and with whom the same weapons could avail her nothing, that Clara Thorne took her way to Lady Trevor's boudoir. CHAPTER XXXIX. LADY TREVOR SCORES. Ir may seem strange, and a proof of no little egotism in Miss Clara Thorne, that she could connect her summons from Lady Trevor in her hour of sorrow in any way with her own affairs; but her keen appreciation of her position, and habit of looking things straight in the face, had, as it happened, led her to a just conclusion. Had it been her mother, or even Lucy, who had called at the Court to make inquiries, it was possible enough she would have allowed that Lady Trevor might have admitted them to her sanctuary, and welcomed their condolements; but her own relations with her ladyship were very different from theirs; there was, at the best, an armed neutrality between them; and though Mr. Gurdon had spoken of her being sent for as a proof of friendship, she knew that he had been only prophesying smooth things to gloss over a moment of embarrassment. A stranger, it is written, does not intermeddle with our joy: how much less then with our sorrow; and it was as something worse than a stranger-an antagonist-that Lady Trevor, she was well aware, regarded her. Was it likely, then, that she should seek for her personal sympathy in a misfortune which, she did not doubt, had wrung her very heart-strings? Nevertheless, when her hostess rose to meet her with her usual grace, indeed, but clothed in sadness, like a fair woman craped, and with her sweet voice tender with such a freight of woe as choked its utterance-the visitor's calculations seemed at fault, while a genuine sorrow for the other's condition almost made her ashamed of them. Lady Trevor's sleepless night, her miserable expedition of the morning, her husband's seizure, and the interview just concluded with her son, had, indeed, been enough to break down a far stronger woman. If rest had been possible to her, she would have taken it; but when news was brought her of Clara's presence in the house, she had at once resolved to see her, and put an end to one, at least, of the anxieties that were keeping sleep from her eyes. Weary and sore driven as she was, the very multitude of her troubles made another ordeal more or less indifferent to her, just as the strokes of the knout fall at last upon a body insensible to pain; nor did she, perhaps, overlook the fact that the pitiable condition in which her visitor found her, even if it failed to move her pity, must needs preclude the suspicion of duplicity or finesse. "You have doubtless heard, dear girl, something of what has happened to my poor husband,' said Lady Trevor, taking Clara's hand in hers, and seating herself beside her on a couch. 'Yes, indeed; the sad news was told me in the village in my morning walk, and I came straight up to the Court at once, without even communicating with my people, or I should not, of course, have come alone.' 'It is just as well that you should have done so, for, as it happens, the misfortune that has overwhelmed me has no slight connection with yourself.' 'With me? exclaimed Clara in astonishment. 'Yes, dear, with you,' and she gently pressed her hand as if in identification. What I am about to say will, I fear, be very unpleasant to you, but it cannot pain you to hear as it pains me to tell it; for, though you may think otherwise, dear girl-as J. did myself when I was your age-there is no heart so ill able to resist a blow as that of a mother.' This very unexpected exordium reawakened at once Clara's worst apprehensions, and though she had no idea of the road her ladyship's thoughts were taking, she had a very shrewd idea of what they were driving at. She did not dare withdraw her hand from Lady Trevor's, though the retention of it, as she felt, |