anything unusual was taking place in it.  Then, after giving her an interval of a minute or two to collect what little strength she had left, he added that he would not increase her sufferings by saying anything more, just then, on the shocking subject of the investigation which it was his duty to make—­that he would leave her to recover herself, and to consider what was the best course to be taken with the baroness in the present terrible emergency—­and that he would privately return to the house between eight and nine o’clock that evening, ready to act as Miss Welwyn wished, and to afford her and her sister any aid and protection of which they might stand in need.  With these words he bowed, and noiselessly quitted the room.

For the first few awful minutes after she was left alone, Miss Welwyn sat helpless and speechless; utterly numbed in heart, and mind, and body—­then a sort of instinct (she was incapable of thinking) seemed to urge her to conceal the fearful news from her sister as long as possible.  She ran upstairs to Rosamond’s sitting-room, and called through the door (for she dared not trust herself in her sister’s presence) that the visitor had come on some troublesome business from their late father’s lawyers, and that she was going to shut herself up, and write some long letters in connection with that business.  After she had got into her own room, she was never sensible of how time was passing—­never conscious of any feeling within her, except a baseless, helpless hope that the French police might yet be proved to have made some terrible mistake—­until she heard a violent shower of rain come on a little after sunset.  The noise of the rain, and the freshness it brought with it in the air, seemed to awaken her as if from a painful and a fearful sleep.  The power of reflection returned to her; her heart heaved and bounded with an overwhelming terror, as the thought of Rosamond came back vividly to it; her memory recurred despairingly to the long-past day of her mother’s death, and to the farewell promise she had made by her mother’s bedside.  She burst into an hysterical passion of weeping that seemed to be tearing her to pieces.  In the midst of it she heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs in the courtyard, and knew that Rosamond’s husband had come back.

Dipping her handkerchief in cold water, and passing it over her eyes as she left the room, she instantly hastened to her sister.

Fortunately the daylight was fading in the old-fashioned chamber that Rosamond occupied.  Before they could say two words to each other, Franval was in the room.  He seemed violently irritated; said that he had waited for the arrival of the mail—­that the missing newspaper had not come by it—­that he had got wet through—­that he felt a shivering fit coming on—­and that he believed he had caught a violent cold.  His wife anxiously suggested some simple remedies.  He roughly interrupted her, saying there was but one remedy, the remedy of going