The good like you!  Humbly, meekly, deferentially was it expressed, in all good faith and trust, as though Miss Corny was a sort of upper angel.  Somehow the words grated on Miss Corny’s ear:  grated fiercely on her conscience.  It came into her mind, then, as she stood there, that the harsh religion that she had through life professed, was not the religion that would best bring peace to her dying bed.

“Child,” said she, drawing near to and leaning over Lady Isabel, “had I anything to do with sending you from East Lynne?”

Lady Isabel shook her head and cast down her gaze, as she whispered:  “You did not send me; you did not help to send me.  I was not very happy with you, but that was not the cause—­of my going away.  Forgive me, Miss Carlyle, forgive me!”

“Thank God!” inwardly breathed Miss Carlyle.  “Forgive me,” she said, aloud and in agitation, touching her hand.  “I could have made your home happier, and I wish I had done it.  I have wished it ever since you left it.”

Lady Isabel drew the hand in hers.  “I want to see Archibald,” she whispered, going back, in thought, to the old time and the old name.  “I have prayed Joyce to bring him to me, and she will not.  Only for a minute!  Just to hear him say that he forgives me!  What can it matter, now that I am as one lost to the world?  I should die easier.”

Upon what impulse or grounds Miss Carlyle saw fit to accede to the request, cannot be told.  Probably she did not choose to refuse a death-bed prayer; possibly she reasoned, as did Lady Isabel—­what could it matter?  She went to the door.  Joyce was in the corridor, leaning against the wall, her apron up to her eyes.  Miss Carlyle beckoned to her.

“How long have you known of this?”

“Since that night in the spring, when there was an alarm of fire.  I saw her then, with nothing on her face, and knew her; though, at the first moment, I thought it was her ghost.  Ma’am, I have just gone about since, like a ghost myself from fear.”

“Go and request your master to come up to me.”

“Oh, ma’am!  Will it be well to tell him?” remonstrated Joyce.  “Well that he should see her?”

“Go and request your master to come to me,” unequivocally repeated Miss Carlyle.  “Are you mistress, Joyce, or am I?”

Joyce went down and brought Mr. Carlyle up from the dinner-table.

“Is Madame Vine worse, Cornelia?  Will she see me?”

“She wishes to see you.”

Miss Carlyle opened the door as she spoke.  He motioned her to pass in first.  “No,” she said, “you had better see her alone.”

He was going in when Joyce caught his arm.  “Master!  Master!  You ought to be prepared.  Ma’am, won’t you tell him?”

He looked at them, thinking they must be moonstruck, for their conduct seemed inexplicable.  Both were in evident agitation, an emotion Miss Carlyle was not given to.  Her face and lips were twitching, but she kept a studied silence.  Mr. Carlyle knit his brow and went into the chamber.  They shut him in.