“I am so grieved, Lady Isabel!  Had I foreseen this annoyance, you should have been spared it.  Can you go upstairs alone, or shall I call Mrs. Mason?”

“Oh, yes!  I can go alone; I am not ill, only frightened and sick.  This is not the worst,” she shivered.  “There are two men up—­up—­with papa.”

“Up with papa.”  Mr. Carlyle was puzzled.  He saw that she was shaking from head to foot, as she stood before him.

“I cannot understand it, and it terrifies me,” she continued, attempting an explanation.  “They are sitting in the room, close to him:  they have taken him, they say.”

A blank, thunderstruck pause.  Mr. Carlyle looked at her—­he did not speak; and then he turned and looked at the butler, who was standing near.  But the man only responded by giving his head a half shake, and Mr. Carlyle saw that it was an ominous one.

“I will clear the house of these,” he said to Lady Isabel, pointing back to the dining-room, “and then join you upstairs.”

“Two ruffians, sir, and they have got possession of the body,” whispered the butler in Mr. Carlyle’s ear, as Lady Isabel departed.  “They obtained entrance to the chamber by a sly, deceitful trick, saying they were the undertaker’s men, and that he can’t be buried unless their claims are paid, if it’s for a month to come.  It has upset all our stomachs, sir; Mrs. Mason while telling me—­for she was the first one to know it—­was as sick as she could be.”

At present Mr. Carlyle returned to the dining-room, and bore the brunt of the anger of those savages, and it may be said, ill-used men.  Not that it was vented upon him—­quite the contrary—­but on the memory of the unhappy peer, who lay overhead.  A few had taken the precaution to insure the earl’s life, and they were the best off.  They left the house after a short space of time; for Mr. Carlyle’s statement was indisputable, and they knew the law better than to remain, trespassers on his property.

But the custodians of the dead could not be got rid of.  Mr. Carlyle proceeded to the death-chamber, and examined their authority.  A similar case had never occurred under his own observation, though it had under his father’s, and Mr. Carlyle remembered hearing of it.  The body of a church dignitary, who had died deeply in debt, was arrested as it was being carried through the cloisters to its grave in the cathedral.  These men, sitting over Lord Mount Severn, enforced heavy claims; and there they must sit until the arrival of Mr. Vane from Castle Marling—­now the Earl of Mount Severn.

On the following morning, Sunday, Mr. Carlyle proceeded again to East Lynne, and found, to his surprise, that there was no arrival.  Isabel sat in the breakfast-room alone, the meal on the table untouched, and she shivering—­as it seemed—­on a low ottoman before the fire.  She looked so ill that Mr. Carlyle could not forbear remarking upon it.

“I have not slept, and I am very cold,” she answered.  “I did not close my eyes all night, I was so terrified.”