It was a spacious place, bare of furniture, but with a sort of dais at the further end. It was lighted by four windows high in the wall, bordered by ugly strips of blue glass; and a large stove for heating purposes had a black chimney-pipe carried up into the roof. There was also an outer door, which Mrs. Wilding said led into the garden.

"McGregor keeps the outer key, but of course he will give it up to Mr. Campbell; and I will now leave this one, so that you can enter when you like from the drawing-room. Yes, the chapel-room does strike cold, in spite of the wooden floor having been put in when it was used as a schoolroom. It was all stone flags to begin with, and the stones are still there underneath. Mr. Nugent did not use it many times, after going to all the expense of the building. He took a dislike to Mirk Muir and went away; and the tenant next after kept a school for boys, and made it into a class-room—the house has been through many hands in the last eight years."

"And you have been here with all the changes?"

"Yes, for that was Mr. Nugent's wish. I was matron when it was the school; but with the others I have cooked and kept house. Will you like to see the kitchen side?"

I was willing to see all she cared to show, but I understood by a slightly hinted reserve, that the back premises were her own peculiar domain, on which I was not to intrude except by invitation. And I did not wonder when I discovered what was there.

The best kitchen is a spacious apartment, where, I imagine, cooking is rarely done, as there is another and more modern range in the second kitchen behind. There was a fire, however, and set beside it in an elbow chair was the helpless figure of a man.

He was paralysed below the waist, having sustained some injury to the spine, and the malady was creeping upwards; but he must once have been of uncommon strength, with a large and powerful frame. He still had the use of one hand; and he kept a stick beside him. At first he did not appear to notice my entrance, as he kept his eye on a collie-dog, a nice creature, which was sidling round to find a resting-place within the radius of warmth. I shall not soon forget the murderous look on his face, as he struck at the animal with his stick—missing it, happily, for the blow fell harmless on the floor.

"Leave the dog alone," his wife commanded sharply. And then: "This is the new mistress, Mrs. Campbell," she said as we passed through.

The man then made some sort of civil salutation, but I could not bring myself to speak to him, except with the merest good-day. If from a man's countenance you may judge the quality of his soul, in this afflicted body must have dwelt a very demon. In the work-a-day kitchen beyond, a stout servant-lass was busy washing dishes at the sink: she had heard what passed, and the blow of the stick on the floor.

"Bassett'll be the death of that dog, missis, just as he was of the other," she remarked as she bent over her task.

"Who is Bassett?" I asked, though feeling sure what would be the answer.

"The man you have just seen—Thomas Bassett, my husband."

"But you are Mrs. Wilding?" I exclaimed, perhaps unwisely.

"I have taken back my former name, because I will not any longer be called by his. Did not Mr. Bayliss tell you?" was her counter-question, to which I answered No.

The tour of inspection ended, I wandered out into the garden, for it was now fine overhead, though everything was still drenched by yesterday's rain. Presently I discovered I had dropped my handkerchief, and as I knew I had it when Mrs. Wilding was showing me the drawing-room, I turned in there on re-entering. There it lay on the drab carpet; but I was surprised to come upon the boy who—as I believed—helped over night with our luggage. Certainly he could have had no business there, in a room I was likely to occupy. Again he was in the act of slipping through a door: it was the front door the night before, and now he was disappearing into the chapel by the entrance Mrs.