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 20, 1864.] took Lady Laura there, but a determination that had sprung out of it. A resolve had seated itself firmly in her mind to sift the matter to its very foundation, to bring to light the past. She cared not what means she used: the truth she would know, come what would. Of a sufficiently honourable nature on the whole, Lady Laura forgot honour now; Mr. Carlton had reproached her with “dodging” his steps; she was prepared to do that and worse in her route of discovery.

It might have been described as a disease, this mania that was distracting her. What did she promise herself would be gained by these hauntings of Blister Lane? She did not know; all that she could have told was, that she was unable to rest away from the place. For one thing, she wanted to ascertain how frequently Mr. Carlton went to the cottage.

But fortune had not favoured her. Not once had she chanced to light upon the time that Mr. Carlton paid his professional visit. Had she met him—of which there was of course a risk—an excuse was ready. As if fate wished to afford her a facility of operation, Lady Laura had become acquainted with the fact that a young woman, expert in fine needlework, lived in Blister Lane; she immediately supplied her with some, and could have been going there to see about it had she been inconveniently met.

One gloomy day in the beginning of November, Laura bent her steps in the usual direction. It did not rain, but the skies were lowering, and anybody might have supposed that Lady Laura was better indoors than out. She, however, did not think so. In her mind’s fever, outward discomfort was as nothing.

As she passed the gate of Tupper’s cottage, Mrs. Smith, in her widow’s cap, was leaning over it, gazing in the direction of South Wennock, as if expecting some one. She looked at Laura as she came up; but she did not know her for the wife of Mr. Carlton. And Lady Laura, with averted eyes and a crimson blush on her haughty cheeks, went right into the road amidst the mud, rather than pass close to the gate. It was the only time she had seen Mrs. Smith since that first day, for the widow kept much to the house.

On went Laura in her fury, and never turned until she came to the cottage of the seamstress. It seemed that she required an excuse to her own mind for being in the lane that day. The conclusion she had arrived at in her insensate folly was, that the woman was looking impatiently for the advent of Mr. Carlton. What passion that this earth contains can ever befool us like that of jealousy!

She went in, gave some directions about the work, so confused and contradictory as nearly to drive the young woman wild, and then retraced her fierce steps back again. Very excessively astonished was she, to see, just on this side of Tupper’s cottage, a sort of hand-carriage standing in the middle of the road path, and the little boy seated in it. He looked weak and wan and pale, but his beautiful eyes smiled a recognition of Lady Laura.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“She took off her pattens and forgot them, and she has got a hole in her boot,” lucidly replied the child.

“Who’s she?” resumed Laura.

“The girl that Mr. Carlton sent. He says I must go out as long as I can, and she comes to draw me. The drum’s broke,” continued the boy, his countenance changing to intense trouble; “Mr. Carlton broke it. He kissed me because I didn’t cry, and he says he’ll bring me another.”

“Is Mr. Carlton there now?” hastily asked Laura, indicating the cottage.

“Yes. It was the drum broke, not the soldier. He hit it too hard.”

The clanking of pattens was heard in the garden path, and a stout-looking country girl came forth. She knew Lady Laura by sight, and curtsied to her. Laura recognised her as a respectable peasant’s daughter who was glad to go out by day, but who could not take a permanent situation on account of a bed-ridden mother.

“The little boy looks ill,” remarked Lady Laura, rather taken to, and saying any words that came uppermost.

“Yes, my lady; and they say he is weaker to-day than he has been at all.”

“Mr. Carlton says so?”

“His mother says so. Mr. Carlton hasn’t seen him. He has not been to-day.”

Laura strode away, vouchsafing no further notice of the speaker, not so much as a word of adieu to the little child. In her heart of hearts she believed the girl was telling her a lie; was purposely deceiving her; and that Mr. Carlton was even then inside the cottage. The child’s words, “the girl that Mr. Carlton sent,” were beating their refrain on her brain. Why should Mr. Carlton send a girl to draw out any child, unless he held some peculiar interest in him? she was asking herself. Ah, if she could but have seen the thing as it actually had been!—how innocent it was! When the boy got past running about, Mr. Carlton said he must still go into the open air. The mother hired this little carriage, and was regretting to Mr. Carlton that she could not hear of a fit person to draw it; he thought at once of this young woman; he was attending the mother