‘I cannot—­I cannot bear it!’ she screamed, springing to her feet; but he waved her back with such a look that her arms dropped to her side.

‘No scene, I beg,’ in a tone of disgust.  ’Let me finish quietly what I have to say.—­Miss Garston,’ turning to me, ’could you spare Chatty to help my cousin pack her clothes and books? for we shall start early in the morning.  Mr. Alnwick has promised to meet us half-way.’

‘I can set Chatty at liberty for the day,’ was my answer.

’Very well.  Etta, you may as well go at once.  Your meals will be served in your room.  I do not wish you to resume your usual habits:  this is my house, not yours.  Your only course now must be obedience and submission.  Let your future conduct atone to me for the past, that I may remember without shame that I have a cousin Etta.’

He turned away then, but I could see his face working.  He had dearly loved this miserable creature, and had cared for her as though she had been his sister, and he could not leave her without this vague word of hope.  Did she understand him, I wonder,—­that in the future he might bring himself to forgive her?  I heard her weeping bitterly in her room afterwards, and Chatty, in her fussy, good-natured way, trying to comfort her:  the girl had a kind heart.

Early in the afternoon Mr. Hamilton joined us in the turret-room.  Directly he came in and sat down by his sister’s couch I knew that he meant to tell her everything,—­that he thought it best that she should hear it from him.

He told it very quietly, without any explanation or expression of feeling; but it was not possible for Gladys to hear that Eric’s name was cleared without keen emotion.  ‘Oh, thank God for this other mercy!’ she sobbed, bursting into tears; and presently, as he went on, she crept closer to him, and before he had finished she had clasped his arm with her two hands and her face was hidden in them.

‘Oh, Giles! if you only knew what she has made me suffer!’ she whispered.  ’We should have understood each other better if Etta had not always come between us.’

‘You are right; I feel you are right, Gladys,’ stroking her fair hair as he spoke; then she looked up and smiled affectionately in his face.

’Ursula, will you leave me alone with my brother for a little?  There is something I want to tell him!’ And I went away at once.

As I opened the door, Chatty came down the passage with a pile of freshly-ironed linen.  Her round face looked unusually disturbed.

‘She is going on so, ma’am,’ she whispered, ’it is dreadful to hear her.  She is making us turn out all her drawers, and there are three big trunks to fill.  She says she is going away for ever.’

‘Hush!’ I returned, with a warning look, for Miss Darrell was at the door watching us.  She was in her yellow dressing-gown, and the old pinched look was still in her face.

‘Why are you stopping to gossip, Chatty?’ she said querulously.  ’I shall not have finished until midnight at this rate.  Leah would have packed by this time.’  And Chatty, with rather a frightened look, carried in her pile of clean linen.