Appealed to on this point, the doctors had declared that at Blanche’s critical time of life they could not sanction her going to India with her mother.  At the same time, near and dear relatives came forward, who were ready and anxious to give Blanche and her governess a home—­Sir Thomas, on his side, engaging to bring his wife back in a year and a half, or, at most, in two years’ time.  Assailed in all directions, Lady Lundie’s natural unwillingness to leave the girls was overruled.  She consented to the parting—­with a mind secretly depressed, and secretly doubtful of the future.

At the last moment she drew Anne Silvester on one side, out of hearing of the rest.  Anne was then a young woman of twenty-two, and Blanche a girl of fifteen.

“My dear,” she said, simply, “I must tell you what I can not tell Sir Thomas, and what I am afraid to tell Blanche.  I am going away, with a mind that misgives me.  I am persuaded I shall not live to return to England; and, when I am dead, I believe my husband will marry again.  Years ago your mother was uneasy, on her death-bed, about your future.  I am uneasy, now, about Blanche’s future.  I promised my dear dead friend that you should be like my own child to me—­and it quieted her mind.  Quiet my mind, Anne, before I go.  Whatever happens in years to come—­promise me to be always, what you are now, a sister to Blanche.”

She held out her hand for the last time.  With a full heart Anne Silvester kissed it, and gave the promise.

IX.

In two months from that time one of the forebodings which had weighed on Lady Lundie’s mind was fulfilled.  She died on the voyage, and was buried at sea.

In a year more the second misgiving was confirmed.  Sir Thomas Lundie married again.  He brought his second wife to England toward the close of eighteen hundred and sixty six.

Time, in the new household, promised to pass as quietly as in the old.  Sir Thomas remembered and respected the trust which his first wife had placed in Anne.  The second Lady Lundie, wisely guiding her conduct in this matter by the conduct of her husband, left things as she found them in the new house.  At the opening of eighteen hundred and sixty-seven the relations between Anne and Blanche were relations of sisterly sympathy and sisterly love.  The prospect in the future was as fair as a prospect could be.

At this date, of the persons concerned in the tragedy of twelve years since at the Hampstead villa, three were dead; and one was self-exiled in a foreign land.  There now remained living Anne and Blanche, who had been children at the time; and the rising solicitor who had discovered the flaw in the Irish marriage—­once Mr. Delamayn:  now Lord Holchester.

THE STORY.

FIRST SCENE.—­THE SUMMER-HOUSE.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.