“I don’t mean that, doctor; but if she could not rest in her grave, poor old lady—­”

“You think, then, my dear,” said the vicar, “that Lady Mary, an old friend, who was as young in her mind as any of us, lies body and soul in that old dark hole of a vault?”

“How you talk, Francis! what can a woman say between you horrid men?  I say if she couldn’t rest,—­wherever she is,—­because of leaving Mary destitute, it would be only natural,—­and I should think the more of her for it,” Mrs. Bowyer cried.

The vicar had a gentle professional laugh over the confusion of his wife’s mind.  But the doctor took the matter more seriously.  “Lady Mary is safely buried and done with, I am not thinking of her,” he said; “but I am thinking of Mary Vivian’s senses, which will not stand this much longer.  Try and find out from her if she sees anything:  if she has come to that, whatever she says we must have her out of there.”

But Mrs. Bowyer had nothing to report when this conclave of friends met again.  Mary would not allow that she had seen anything.  She grew paler every day, her eyes grew larger, but she made no confession; and Connie bloomed and grew, and met no more old ladies upon the stairs.

XII.

The days passed on, and no new event occurred in this little history.  It came to be summer,—­balmy and green,—­and everything around the old house was delightful, and its beautiful rooms became more pleasant than ever in the long days and soft brief nights.  Fears of the earl’s return and of the possible end of the Turners’ tenancy began to disturb the household, but no one so much as Mary, who felt herself to cling as she had never done before to the old house.  She had never got over the impression that a secret presence, revealed to no one else, was continually near her, though she saw no one.  And her health was greatly affected by this visionary double life.

This was the state of affairs on a certain soft wet day when the family were all within doors.  Connie had exhausted all her means of amusement in the morning.  When the afternoon came, with its long, dull, uneventful hours, she had nothing better to do than to fling herself upon Miss Vivian, upon whom she had a special claim.  She came to Mary’s room, disturbing the strange quietude of that place, and amused herself looking over all the trinkets and ornaments that were to be found there, all of which were associated to Mary with her godmother.  Connie tried on the bracelets and brooches which Mary in her deep mourning had not worn, and asked a hundred questions.  The answer which had to be so often repeated, “That was given to me by my godmother,” at last called forth the child’s remark, “How fond your godmother must have been of you, Miss Vivian!  She seems to have given you everything—­”

“Everything!” cried Mary, with a full heart.

“And yet they all say she was not kind enough,” said little Connie,—­“what do they mean by that? for you seem to love her very much still, though she is dead.  Can one go on loving people when they are dead?”