“Oh, master!” she wailed, “I have seen one.”

“Are you all going deranged together?” retorted he, wondering what had come to the house.  “Seen a spectre, Joyce?”

Joyce fell on her knees, as if unable to support herself, and crossed her shaking hands upon her chest.  Had she seen ten spectres she could not have betrayed more dire distress.  She was a sensible and faithful servant, one not given to flights of fancy, and Mr. Carlyle gazed at her in very amazement.

“Joyce, what is this?” he asked, bending down and speaking kindly.

“Oh, my dear master!  Heaven have mercy upon us all!” was the inexplicable answer.

“Joyce I ask you what is this?”

She made no reply.  She rose up shaking; and, taking Archie’s hand, slowly proceeded toward the upper stairs, low moans breaking from her, and the boy’s naked feet pattering on the carpet.

“What can ail her?” whispered Barbara, following Joyce with her eyes.  “What did she mean about a spectre?”

“She must have been reading a ghost-book,” said Carlyle.  “Wilson’s folly has turned the house topsy-turvy.  Make your haste, Barbara.”

Spring waned.  Summer came, and would soon be waning, too, for the hot days of July were now in.  What had the months brought forth, since the election of Mr. Carlyle in April?  Be you very sure they had not been without their events.

Mr. Justice Hare’s illness had turned out to be a stroke of paralysis.  People cannot act with unnatural harshness toward a child, and then discover they have been in the wrong, with impunity.  Thus it proved with Mr. Justice Hare.  He was recovering, but would never again be the man he had been.  The fright, when Jasper had gone to tell of his illness at East Lynne, and was mistaken for fire, had done nobody any damage, save William and Joyce.  William had caught a cold, which brought increased malady to the lungs; and Joyce seemed to have caught fear.  She went about, more like one in a dream than awake, would be buried in a reverie for an hour at a time, and if suddenly spoken to, would start and shiver.

Mr. Carlyle and his wife departed for London immediately that Mr. Hare was pronounced out of danger; which was in about a week from the time of his seizure.  William accompanied them, partly for the benefit of London advice, partly that Mr. Carlyle would not be parted from him.  Joyce went, in attendance with some of the servants.

They found London ringing with the news of Sir Francis Levison’s arrest.  London could not understand it; and the most wild and improbable tales were in circulation.  The season was at its height; the excitement in proportion; it was more than a nine days’ wonder.  On the very evening of their arrival a lady, young and beautiful, was shown in to the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.  She had declined to give her name, but there arose to Mr. Carlyle’s memory, when he looked upon her, one whom he had seen in earlier days as the friend of his first wife—­Blanche Challoner.  It was not Blanche, however.