“E.  GIRDLESTONE.”

Our heroine was so surprised at this epistle that she sat for some time dangling the slip of paper between her fingers and lost in thought.  When she glanced round, Rebecca had left the room.  She rolled the paper up and threw it into the fire.  Ezra, then, was not so hard-hearted as she had thought him.  He had used his influence to soften his father.  Should she accept this chance of escape, or should she wait some word from her friends?  Perhaps they were already in Bedsworth, but did not know how to communicate with her.  If so, this offer of Ezra’s was just what was needed.  In any case, she could go on to Portsmouth and telegraph from there to the Dimsdales.  It was too good an offer to be refused.  She made up her mind that she would accept it.  It was past eight now, and nine was the hour.  She stood up with the intention of putting on her cloak and her bonnet.

CHAPTER XLIV.

THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

This conversation with Rebecca had suggested to Ezra that he might still have influence enough with his father’s ward to induce her to come out of doors, and so put herself within the reach of Burt.  He had proposed the plan to his father, who approved of it heartily.  The only weak point in his scheme had been the difficulty which might arise in inducing the girl to venture out of the Priory on that tempestuous winter’s night.  There was evidently only one incentive strong enough to bring it about, and that was the hope of escape.  By harping skilfully upon this string they might lure her into the trap.  Ezra and his father composed the letter together, and the former handed it to Mrs. Jorrocks, with a request that she should deliver it.

It chanced, however, that Rebecca, keenly alive to any attempt at communication between the young merchant and her mistress, saw the crone hobbling down the passage with the note in her hand.

“What’s that, mother?” she asked.

“It’s a letter for her,” wheezed the old woman, nodding her tremulous head in the direction of Kate’s room.

“I’ll take it up,” said Rebecca eagerly.  “I am just going up there with her tea.”

“Thank ye.  Them stairs tries my rheumatiz something cruel.”

The maid took the note and carried it upstairs.  Instead of taking it straight to her mistress she slipped into her own room and read every word of it.  It appeared to confirm her worst suspicions.  Here was Ezra asking an interview with the woman whom he had assured her that he hated.  It was true that the request was made in measured words and on a plausible pretext.  No doubt that was merely to deceive any other eye which might rest upon it.  There was an understanding between them, and this was an assignation.  The girl walked swiftly up and down the room like a caged tigress, striking her head with her clenched hands in her anger and biting