The conversation was here ended by the sight of Alick coming slowly and wearily in from the churchyard, looking as if some fresh weight were upon him, and he soon told them that the doctors had pronounced that Lord Keith was in a critical state, and would probably have much to suffer from the formation that had begun where he had received the neglected bruise in the side.  No word of censure of poor Bessie had been breathed, nor did Alick mention her name, but he deeply suffered under the fulfilment of his own predictions, and his subdued, dejected manner expressed far more than did his words.  Rachel asked how Lord Keith seemed.

“Oh, there’s no getting at his feelings.  He was very civil to me—­ asked after you, Rachel—­told me to give you his thanks, but not a single word about anything nearer.  Then I had to read the paper to him—­all that dinner at Liverpool, and he made remarks, and expected me to know what it was about.  I suppose he does feel; the Colonel says he is exceedingly cut up, and he looks like a man of eighty, infinitely worse than last time I saw him, but I don’t know what to make of him.”

“And, Alick, did you hear the verdict?”

“What verdict?”

“That man at Avoncester.  Mrs. Menteith said there had been a telegram.”

Alick looked startled.  “This has put everything out of my head!” he said.  “What was the verdict?”

“That was just what she could not tell.  She did not quite know who was tried.”

“And she came here and harassed you with it,” he said, looking at her anxiously.  “As if you had not gone through enouqh already.”

“Never mind that now.  It seems so long ago now that I can hardly think much about it, and I have had another visitor,” she added, as Mr. Clare left them to themselves, “Mrs. Carleton—­that poor son of hers is in such distress.”

“She has been palavering you over,” he said, in a tone more like displeasure than he had ever used towards her.

“Indeed, Alick, if you would listen, you would find him very much to be pitied.”

“I only wish never to hear of any of them again.”  He did not speak like himself, and Rachel was aghast.

“I thought you would not object to my letting her in,” she began.

“I never said I did,” he answered; “I can never think of him but as having caused her death, and it was no thanks to him that there was nothing worse.”

The sternness of his manner would have silenced Rachel but for her strong sense of truth and justice, which made her persevere in saying, “There may have been more excuse than you believe.”