he replied. "She has been fretting and fuming after you all the week. If
it had been me out in Sark, she would have slept soundly and ate
heartily; as it was you, she has neither slept nor ate. You are quite an
old woman's pet, Martin. As for me, there is no love lost between old
women and me."

"Good-morning, sir," I said, turning away, and hurrying on to the house.
I heard him laugh lightly, and hum an opera-air as he rode off, sitting
his horse with the easy seat of a thorough horseman. He would never set
up a carriage as long as he could ride like that. I watched him out of
sight, and then went in to seek my poor mother.




CHAPTER THE NINTH.

A CLEW TO THE SECRET.


She was lying on the sofa in the breakfast-room, with the Venetian
blinds down to darken the morning sunshine. Her eyes wore closed, though
she held in her hands the prayer-hook, from which she had been reading
as usual the Psalms for the day. I had time to take note of the extreme
fragility of her appearance, which, doubtless I noticed the more plainly
for my short absence. Her hands were very thin, and her cheeks hollow. A
few silver threads were growing among her brown hair, and a line or two
between her eyebrows were becoming deeper. But while I was looking at
her, though I made no sort of sound or movement, she seemed to feel that
I was there; and after looking up she started from her sofa, and flung