“Suppose somebody went to Craig Fernie and tried to find out the cause of Miss Silvester’s silence?  Would you believe that somebody sympathized with you then?”

Blanche’s face flushed brightly with pleasure and surprise.  She raised Sir Patrick’s hand gratefully to her lips.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.  “You don’t mean that you would do that?”

“I am certainly the last person who ought to do it—­seeing that you went to the inn in flat rebellion against my orders, and that I only forgave you, on your own promise of amendment, the other day.  It is a miserably weak proceeding on the part of ‘the head of the family’ to be turning his back on his own principles, because his niece happens to be anxious and unhappy.  Still (if you could lend me your little carriage), I might take a surly drive toward Craig Fernie, all by myself, and I might stumble against Miss Silvester—­in case you have any thing to say.”

“Any thing to say?” repeated Blanche.  She put her arm round her uncle’s neck, and whispered in his ear one of the most interminable messages that ever was sent from one human being to another.  Sir Patrick listened, with a growing interest in the inquiry on which he was secretly bent.  “The woman must have some noble qualities,” he thought, “who can inspire such devotion as this.”

While Blanche was whispering to her uncle, a second private conference—­of the purely domestic sort—­was taking place between Lady Lundie and the butler, in the hall outside the library door.

“I am sorry to say, my lady, Hester Dethridge has broken out again.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was all right, my lady, when she went into the kitchen-garden, some time since.  She’s taken strange again, now she has come back.  Wants the rest of the day to herself, your ladyship.  Says she’s overworked, with all the company in the house—­and, I must say, does look like a person troubled and worn out in body and mind.”

“Don’t talk nonsense, Roberts!  The woman is obstinate and idle and insolent.  She is now in the house, as you know, under a month’s notice to leave.  If she doesn’t choose to do her duty for that month I shall refuse to give her a character.  Who is to cook the dinner to-day if I give Hester Dethridge leave to go out?”

“Any way, my lady, I am afraid the kitchen-maid will have to do her best to-day.  Hester is very obstinate, when the fit takes her—­as your ladyship says.”

“If Hester Dethridge leaves the kitchen-maid to cook the dinner, Roberts, Hester Dethridge leaves my service to-day.  I want no more words about it.  If she persists in setting my orders at defiance, let her bring her account-book into the library, while we are at lunch, and lay it out my desk.  I shall be back in the library after luncheon—­and if I see the account-book I shall know what it means.  In that case, you will receive my directions to settle with her and send her away.  Ring the luncheon-bell.”