CHAPTER XXXIX.

A GLEAM OF LIGHT.





Next day but one, the Companion of St. Michael and St. George came
in to Craighton with evil tidings. He had heard in the village that
Sir Gilbert Gildersleeve was ill--very seriously ill. The judge
had come home from the Holkers' the other evening much upset by
the arrival of Gwendoline's telegram.

"Though why on earth should that upset him," Mr. Clifford continued,
screwing up his small face with a very wise air, "is more than
I can conceive; for I'm sure the Gildersleeves angled hard enough
in their time to catch young Kelmscott, by hook or by crook, for
their gawky daughter; and now that young Kelmscott telegraphs over
to say he's coming home post haste to marry her, Miss Gwendoline
faints away, if you please, as she reads the news, and the judge
himself goes upstairs as soon as he gets home, and takes to his
bed incontinently. But there, the ways of the world are really
inscrutable! What reconciles me to life, every day I grow older, is
that it's so amusing--so intensely amusing! You never know what's
going to turn up next; and what you least expect is what most often
happens."

Elma, however, received his news with a very grave face.