“Don’t look at me, don’t speak to me, in that horrible manner!” she exclaimed.  “Clara! it is unworthy of a reasonable being, it is doubting the mercy of God, to say what you have just said.  Look at the newspaper again.  See!  They tell you plainly that their information is not to be depended on—­they warn you to wait for further particulars.  The very words at the top of the list show how little they knew of the truth ‘Dead or Missing!’ On their own showing, it is quite as likely that Frank is missing as that Frank is dead.  For all you know, the next mail may bring a letter from him.  Are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“Can you deny what I say?”

“No.”

“‘Yes!’ ‘No!’ Is that the way to answer me when I am so distressed and so anxious about you?”

“I am sorry I spoke as I did, Lucy.  We look at some subjects in very different ways.  I don’t dispute, dear, that yours is the reasonable view.”

“You don’t dispute?” retorted Mrs. Crayford, warmly.  “No! you do what is worse—­you believe in your own opinion; you persist in your own conclusion—­with the newspaper before you!  Do you, or do you not, believe the newspaper?”

“I believe in what I saw last night.”

“In what you saw last night!  You, an educated woman, a clever woman, believing in a vision of your own fancy—­a mere dream!  I wonder you are not ashamed to acknowledge it!”

“Call it a dream if you like, Lucy.  I have had other dreams at other times—­and I have known them to be fulfilled.”

“Yes!” said Mrs. Crayford.  “For once in a way they may have been fulfilled, by chance—­and you notice it, and remember it, and pin your faith on it.  Come, Clara, be honest!—­What about the occasions when the chance has been against you, and your dreams have not been fulfilled?  You superstitious people are all alike.  You conveniently forget when your dreams and your presentiments prove false.  For my sake, dear, if not for your own,” she continued, in gentler and tenderer tones, “try to be more reasonable and more hopeful.  Don’t lose your trust in the future, and your trust in God.  God, who has saved my husband, can save Frank.  While there is doubt, there is hope.  Don’t embitter my happiness, Clara!  Try to think as I think—­if it is only to show that you love me.”

She put her arm round the girl’s neck, and kissed her.  Clara returned the kiss; Clara answered, sadly and submissively,

“I do love you, Lucy.  I will try.”

Having answered in those terms, she sighed to herself, and said no more.  It would have been plain, only too plain, to far less observant eyes than Mrs. Crayford’s that no salutary impression had been produced on her.  She had ceased to defend her own way of thinking, she spoke of it no more—­but there was the terrible conviction of Frank’s death at Wardour’s hands rooted as firmly as ever in her mind!  Discouraged and distressed, Mrs. Crayford left her, and walked back toward the house.