“Had any error occurred at that time, any false report of her death, I should soon have found it out by her drawing the annuity I settled upon her.  It has never been drawn since.  Besides, she would have written to me, as agreed upon.  No, poor thing, she is gone beyond all doubt, and has taken her sins with her.”

Convincing proofs; and Miss Carlyle lent her ear to them.

The following morning while Madame Vine was at breakfast, Mr. Carlyle entered.

“Do you admit intruders here Madame Vine?” cried he, with his sweet smile, and attractive manner.

She arose; her face burning, her heart throbbing.

“Keep your seat, pray; I have but a moment to stay,” said Mr. Carlyle.  “I have come to ask you how William seems?”

“There was no difference,” she murmured, and then she took courage and spoke more openly.  “I understood you to say the other night, sir, that he should have further advice.”

“Ay; I wish him to go over to Lynneborough, to Dr. Martin; the drive, I think, will do him good,” replied Mr. Carlyle.  “And I would like you to accompany him, if you do not mind the trouble.  You can have the pony carriage, it will be better to go in that than boxed up in the railway carriage.  You can remind Dr. Martin that the child’s constitution is precisely what his mother’s was,” continued Mr. Carlyle, a tinge lightening his face.  “It may be a guide to his treatment; he said himself it was, when he attended him for an illness a year or two ago.”

“Yes, sir.”

He crossed the hall on his entrance to the breakfast-room.  She tore upstairs to her chamber, and sank down in an agony of tears and despair.  Oh, to love him as she did now!  To yearn after his affection with this passionate, jealous longing, and to know that they were separated for ever and ever; that she was worse to him than nothing!

Softly, my lady.  This is not bearing your cross.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

APPEARANCE OF A RUSSIAN BEAR AT WEST LYNNE.

Mr. Carlyle harangued the populace from the balcony of the Buck’s Head, a substantial old House, renowned in the days of posting, now past and gone.  Its balcony was an old-fashioned, roomy balcony, painted green, where there was plenty of space for his friends to congregate.  He was a persuasive orator, winning his way to ears and hearts; but had he spoken with plums in his mouth, and a stammer on his tongue, and a break-down at every sentence, the uproarious applause and shouts would be equally rife.  Mr. Carlyle was intensely popular in West Lynne, setting aside his candidateship and his oratory; and West Lynne made common cause against Sir Francis Levison.