As so often happens when all is prepared and ready for the catastrophe, the stroke of fate was averted. That night proved better than the last, and then there passed two or three quiet days. It was even possible, the doctor thought, that the alarm might be a false one, and the patient go on, if tranquil and undisturbed, until, in the course of nature, another crisis prepared itself or external commotion accelerated nature. He had received his wife back after her few hours’ banishment with a sort of chuckling satisfaction, and though even his reduced and enfeebled state did not make him incapable of offence, the insulting remarks he addressed to her were no more than his ordinary method. Madam said nothing of them; she seemed, strangely enough, glad to return to her martyrdom. It was better, it appeared, than the sensation of being sent away. She was with him, without rest or intermission, the whole day and a great portion of the night. The two or three hours allowed her for repose were in the middle of the night, and she never stirred abroad nor tasted the fresh air through this period of confinement. The drives which had been her daily refreshment were stopped, along with every other possibility of freedom. In the meantime there appeared something like a fresh development of confidence and dependence upon her, which wrung the heart of the enemy in her stronghold, and made Russell think her work had been all in vain. Mr. Trevanion could not, it was said, bear his wife out of his sight.

It is a mistake when a dying person thus keeps all his world waiting. The sympathetic faculties are worn out. The household in general felt a slight sensation of resentment towards the sick man who had cheated them into so much interest. It was not as if he had been a man whom his dependents loved, and he had defrauded them of that profound and serious interest with which the last steps of any human creature—unless in a hospital or other agglomeration of humanity, where individual characteristics are abolished—are accompanied. The servants, who had with a little awe attended the coming of death, were half disappointed, half disgusted by the delay. Even John Trevanion, who had made up his mind very seriously and somewhat against his own convictions to wait “till all was over,” had a sensation of annoyance: he might go on for weeks, perhaps for months, all the winter—“thank God!” they said, mechanically; but John could not help thinking how inconvenient it would be to come back—to hang on all the winter, never able to go anywhere. It would have been so much more considerate to get it over at once, but Reginald was never one who considered other people’s convenience. Dr. Beaton, who had no desire to leave Highcourt, and who, besides, had a doctor’s satisfaction in a successful fight with disease, took it much more pleasantly. He rubbed his hands and expressed his hopes of “pulling” his patient through, with much unnecessary cordiality. “Let us but stave off all trouble till spring, and there is no saying what may happen,” he said, jauntily. “The summer will be all in his favor, and before next winter we may get him away.” The younger members of the family took this for granted. Reginald, who had been sent for from school, begged his mother another time to be sure there was some real need for it before summoning a fellow home in the middle of the half; and Rosalind entirely recovered her spirits. The cloud that had hung over the house seemed about to melt away. Nobody was aware of the agitating conferences which Jane held with her mistress in the few moments when they saw each other; or the miserable anxiety which contended in Madam’s mind with her evident and necessary duties. She had buried her troubles too long in her own bosom to exhibit them now. And thus the days passed slowly away; the patient had not yet been allowed to leave his bed, and, indeed, was in a state of alarming feebleness, but that was all.

Rosalind was left very much to herself during these days. She had now no longer any one to go out with. Sometimes, indeed, her uncle would propose a walk, but that at the most occupied but a small part of the day, and all her usual occupations had been suspended in the general excitement. She took to wandering about the park, where she could stray alone as much as pleased her, fearing no intrusion. A week or ten days after the visit of Mr. Blake, she was walking near the lake which was the pride of Highcourt. In summer the banks of this piece of water were a mass of flowering shrubs, and on the little artificial island in the middle was a little equally artificial cottage, the creation of Rosalind’s grandmother, where still the children in summer would often go to have tea. One or two boats lay at a little landing-place for the purpose of transporting visitors, and it was one of the pleasures of the neighborhood, when the family were absent, to visit the Bijou, as it was called. At one end of the little lake was a road leading from the village, to which the public of the place had a right. It was perhaps out of weariness with the monotony of her lonely walks that Rosalind directed her steps that way on an afternoon when all was cold and clear, an orange-red sunset preparing in the west, and indications of frost in the air. The lake caught the reflection of the sunset blaze and was all barred with crimson and gold, with the steely blue of its surface coming in around and intensifying every tint. Rosalind walked slowly round the margin of the water, and thought of the happy afternoons when the children and their mother had been rowed across, she herself and Rex taking the control of the boat. The water looked tempting, with its bars of color, and the little red roof of the Bijou blazed in the slanting light. She played with the boats at the landing-place, pushing one into the water with a half fancy to push forth into the lake, until it had got almost too far off to be pulled back again, and gave her some trouble, standing on the edge of the tiny pier with an oar in her hand, to bring it back to its little anchorage. She was standing thus, her figure relieved against the still, shining surface of the water, when she heard a footstep behind her, and thinking it the man who had charge of the cottage and the boats, called to him without turning round, “Come here, Dunmore; I have loosed this boat and I can’t get it back—”

The footstep advanced with a certain hesitation. Then an unfamiliar voice said, “I am not Dunmore—but if you will allow me to help you—”

She started and turned round. It was the same stranger whom she had already twice seen on the road. “Oh! pray don’t let me trouble you. Dunmore will be here directly,” she said.

This did not, however, prevent the young man from rendering the necessary assistance. He got into one of the nearer boats, and stretching out from the bow of it, secured the stray pinnace. It was not a dangerous act, nor even one that gave the passer-by much trouble, but Rosalind, partly out of a sense that she had been ungracious, partly, perhaps—who can tell—out of the utter monotony of all around her, thanked him with eagerness. “I am sorry to give you trouble,” she said again.

“It is no trouble, it is a pleasure.” Was he going to be so sensible, so judicious, as to go away after this? He seemed to intend so. He put on his hat after bowing to her, and turned away, but then there seemed to be an after-thought which struck him. He turned back again, took off his hat again, and said: “I beg your pardon, but may I ask for Mr. Trevanion? The village news is so uncertain.”

“My father is still very ill,” said Rosalind, “but it is thought there is now some hope.”

“That is good news indeed,” the stranger said. Certainly he had a most interesting face. It could not be possible that a man with such a countenance was “not a gentleman,” that most damning of all sentences. His face was refined and delicate; his eyes large, liquid, full of meaning, which was increased by the air of weakness which made them larger and brighter than eyes in ordinary circumstances. And certainly it was kind of him to be glad.

“Oh, yes, you told me before you knew my father,” Rosalind said.

“I cannot claim to know Mr. Trevanion; but I do know a member of the family very well, and I have heard of him all my life.”

Rosalind was no more afraid of a young man than of an old woman, and she thought she had been unjust to this stranger, who, after all, notwithstanding his rough dress, had nothing about him to find fault with. She said, “Yes; perhaps my Uncle John? In any case I am much obliged to you, both for helping me and for your interest in papa.”

“May I sometimes ask how he is? The villagers are so vague.”

“Oh, certainly,” said Rosalind; “they have a bulletin at the lodge, or if you care to come so far as Highcourt, you will always have the last report.”

“You are very kind, I will not come to the house. But I know that you often walk in the park. If I may ask you when we—chance to meet?”

This suggestion startled Rosalind. It awoke in her again that vague alarm—not, perhaps, a gentleman. But when she looked at the eyes which were searching hers with so sensitive a perception of every shade of expression, she became confused and did not know what to think. He was so quickly sensible of every change that he saw he had taken a wrong step. He ought to have gone further, and perceived what the wrong step was, but she thought he was puzzled and did not discover this instinctively, as a gentleman would have done. She withdrew a step or two involuntarily. “Oh, no,” she said with gentle dignity, “I do not always walk the same way; but you may be sure of seeing the bulletin at the lodge.” And with this she made him a courtesy and walked away, not hurrying, to show any alarm, but taking a path which was quite out of the way of the public, and where he could not follow. Rosalind felt a little thrill of agitation in her as she went home. Who could he be, and what did he do here, and why did he throw himself in her way? If she had been a girl of a vulgarly romantic imagination, she would no doubt have jumped at the idea of a secret adoration which had brought him to the poor little village for her sake, for the chance of a passing encounter. But Rosalind was not of this turn of imagination, and that undefined doubt which wavered in her mind did a great deal to damp the wings of any such fancy. What he had said was almost equal to asking her to meet him in the park. She blushed all over at the thought—at the curious impossibility of it, the want of knowledge. It did not seem an insult to her, but such an incomprehensible ignorance in him that she was ashamed of it; that he should have been capable of such a mistake. Not a gentleman! Oh, surely he could never, never— And yet the testimony of those fine, refined features—the mouth so delicate and sensitive, the eyes so eloquent—was of such a different kind. And was it Uncle John he knew? But Uncle John had passed him on the road and had not known him. It was very strange altogether. She could not banish the beautiful, pleading eyes out of her mind. How they looked at her! They were almost a child’s eyes in their uncertainty and wistfulness, reading her face to see how far to go. And altogether he had the air of extreme youth, almost as young as herself, which, of course, in a man is boyhood. For what is a man of twenty? ten years, and more, younger and less experienced than a woman of that sober age. There was a sort of yearning of pity in her heart towards him, just tempered by that doubt. Poor boy! how badly he must have been brought up—how sadly ignorant not to know that a gentleman— And then she began to remember Lord Lytton’s novels, some of which she had read. There would have been nothing out of place in them had such a youth so addressed a lady. He was, indeed, not at all unlike a young man in Lord Lytton. He interested her very much, and filled her mind as she went lightly home. Who could he be, and why so anxious about her father’s health? or was that merely a reason for addressing her—a way, perhaps he thought, of securing her acquaintance, making up some sort of private understanding between them. Had not Rosalind heard somewhere that a boy was opt to select a much older woman as the object of his first admiration? Perhaps that might furnish an explanation for it, for he must be very young, not more than a boy.

When she got home her first step into the house was enough to drive every thought of this description out of her mind. She was aware of the change before she could ask—before she saw even a servant of whom to inquire. The hall, all the rooms, were vacant. She could find nobody, until, coming back after an ineffectual search, she met Jane coming away from the sick-room, carrying various things that had been used there. Jane shook her head in answer to Rosalind’s question. “Oh, very bad again—worse than ever. No one can tell what has brought it on. Another attack, worse than any he has had. I think, Miss Rosalind,” Jane said, drawing close with a tremulous shrill whisper, “it was that dreadful woman that had got in again the moment my poor lady’s back was turned.”

“What dreadful woman?”

“Oh, Russell, Miss Rosalind. My poor lady came out of the room for five minutes— I don’t think it was five minutes. She was faint with fatigue; and all at once we heard a cry. Oh, it was not master, it was that woman. There she was, lying at the room door in hysterics, or whatever you call them. And the spasms came on again directly. I pushed her out of my lady’s way; she may be lying there yet, for anything I know. This time he will never get better, Miss Rosalind,” Jane said.

“Oh, do not say so—do not say so,” the girl cried. He had not been a kind father nor a generous master. But such was the awe of it, and the quivering sympathy of human nature, that even the woman wept as Rosalind threw herself upon her shoulder. The house was full of the atmosphere of death.