MARY WELLS, like other uneducated women, was not accustomed to think long and earnestly on any one subject; to use an expression she once applied with far less justice to her sister, her mind was like running water.

But gestation affects the brains of such women, and makes them think more steadily, and sometimes very acutely; added to which, the peculiar dangers and difficulties that beset this girl during that anxious period stimulated her wits to the very utmost. Often she sat quite still for hours at a time, brooding and brooding, and asking herself how she could turn each new and unexpected event to her own benefit. Now so much does mental force depend on that exercise of keen and long attention, in which her sex is generally deficient, that this young woman's powers were more than doubled since the day she first discovered her condition, and began to work her brains night and day for her defense.

Gradually, as events I have related unfolded themselves, she caught a glimpse of this idea, that if she could get her mistress to have a secret, her mistress would help her to keep her own. Hence her insidious whispers, and her constant praises of Mr. Angelo, who, she saw, was infatuated with Lady Bassett. Yet the designing creature was actually fond of her mistress: and so strangely compounded is a heart of this low kind that the extraordinary step she now took was half affectionate impulse, half egotistical design.

She made a motion with her hand inviting Lady Bassett to listen, and stepped into Sir Charles's room.

“Childless! childless! childless!”

“Hush, sir,” said Mary Wells. “Don't say so. We shan't be many mouths without one, please Heaven.”

Sir Charles shook his head sadly.

“Don't you believe me?”

“No.”

“What, did ever I tell you a lie?”

“No: but you are mistaken. She would have told me.”

“Well, sir, my lady is young and shy, and I think she is afraid of disappointing you after all; for you know, sir, there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. But 'tis as I tell you, sir.”

Sir Charles was much agitated, and said he would give her a hundred guineas if that was true. “Where is my darling wife? Why do I hear this through a servant?”

Mary Wells cast a look at the door, and said, for Lady Bassett to hear, “She is receiving company. Now, sir, I have told you good news; will you do something to oblige me? You shouldn't speak of it direct to my lady just yet; and if you want all to go well, you mustn't vex my lady as you are doing now. What I mean, you mustn't be so downhearted— there's no reason for't—and you mustn't coop yourself up on this floor: it sets the folks talking, and worries my lady. You should give her every chance, being the way she is.”

Sir Charles said eagerly he would not vex her for the world. “I'll walk in the garden,” said he; “but as for going abroad, you know I am not in a fit condition yet; my mind is clouded.”

“Not as I see.”

“Oh, not always. But sometimes a cloud seems to get into my head; and if I was in public I might do or say something discreditable. I would rather die.”

“La, sir!” said Mary Wells, in a broad, hearty way—“a cloud in your head! You've had a bad fall, and a fit at top on't, and no wonder your poor head do ache at times. You'll outgrow that—if you take the air and give over fretting about the t'other thing. I tell you you'll hear the music of a child's voice and little feet a-pattering up and down this here corridor before so very long—if so be you take my advice, and leave off fretting my lady with fretting of yourself. You should consider: she is too fond of you to be well when you be ill.”

“I'll get well for her sake,” said Sir Charles, firmly.

At this moment there was a knock at the door. Mary Wells opened it so that the servant could see nothing.

“Mr. Angelo has called.”

“My lady will be down directly.”

Mary Wells then slipped into the dressing-room, and found Lady Bassett looking pale and wild. She had heard every word.

“There, he is better already,” said Mary Wells. “He shall walk in the garden with you this afternoon.”

“What have you done? I can't look him in the face now. Suppose he speaks to me?”

“He will not. I'll manage that. You won't have to say a word. Only listen to what I say, and don't make a liar of me. He is better already.”

“How will this end?” cried Lady Bassett, helplessly. “What shall I do?”

“You must go downstairs, and not come here for an hour at least, or you'll spoil my work. Mr. Angelo is in the drawing-room.”

“I will go to him.”

Lady Bassett slipped out by the other door, and it was three hours, instead of one, before she returned.

For the first time in her life she was afraid to face her husband.