She reached Gravesend, and drove in a fly to Kent Villa.

The door was opened by a maid.

“Is Mrs. Staines at home?”

“Yes, ma’am, she is at home:  but—­”

“Can I see her?”

“Why, no, ma’am, not at present.”

“But I must see her.  I am an old friend.  Please take her my card.  Lady
Cicely Treherne.”

The maid hesitated, and looked confused.  “Perhaps you don’t know, ma’am.  Mrs. Staines, she is—­the doctor have been in the house all day.”

“Ah, the doctor!  I believe Dr. Philip Staines is here.”

“Why, that is the doctor, ma’am.  Yes, he is here.”

“Then, pray let me see him—­or no; I had better see Mr. Lusignan.”

“Master have gone out for the day, ma’am; but if you’ll step in the drawing-room, I’ll tell the doctor.”

Lady Cicely waited in the drawing-room some time, heart-sick and trembling.

At last Dr. Philip came in, with her card in his hand, looking evidently a little cross at the interruption.  “Now, madam, please tell me, as briefly as you can, what I can do for you.”

“Are you Dr. Philip Staines?”

“I am, madam, at your service—­for five minutes.  Can’t quit my patient long, just now.”

“Oh, sir, thank God I have found you.  Be prepared for ill news—­sad news—­a terrible calamity—­I can’t speak.  Read that, sir.”  And she handed him Tadcaster’s note.

He took it, and read it.

He buried his face in his hands.  “Christopher! my poor, poor boy!” he groaned.  But suddenly a terrible anxiety seized him.  “Who knows of this?” he asked.

“Only myself, sir.  I came here to break it to her.”

“You are a good, kind lady, for being so thoughtful.  Madam, if this gets to my niece’s ears, it will kill her, as sure as we stand here.”

“Then let us keep it from her.  Command me, sir.  I will do anything.  I will live here—­take the letters in—­the journals—­anything.”

“No, no; you have done your part, and God bless you for it.  You must not stay here.  Your ladyship’s very presence, and your agitation, would set the servants talking, and some idiot-fiend among them babbling—­there is nothing so terrible as a fool.”

“May I remain at the inn, sir; just one night?”

“Oh yes, I wish you would; and I will run over, if all is well with her—­well with her? poor unfortunate girl!”

Lady Cicely saw he wished her gone, and she went directly.

At nine o’clock that same evening, as she lay on a sofa in the best room of the inn, attended by her maid, Dr. Philip Staines came to her.  She dismissed her maid.

Dr. Philip was too old, in other words, had lost too many friends, to be really broken down by bereavement; but he was strangely subdued.  The loud tones were out of him, and the loud laugh, and even the keen sneer.  Yet he was the same man; but with a gentler surface; and this was not without its pathos.