Elizabeth had a sitting-room and bedroom at the end of the corridor, and Mrs.Gaddesden went into the sitting-room first, as quietly as possible, so as not to startle her daughter.
She had hardly entered and closed the door behind her, guided by the light of a still flickering fire, when a sound from the inner room arrested her.
Elizabeth--Elizabeth in distress?
The mother stood rooted to the spot, in a sudden anguish.
Elizabeth--sobbing?
Only once in her life had Mrs.Gaddesden heard that sound before--the night that the news of Francis Merton's death reached Martindale, and Elizabeth had wept, as her mother believed, more for what her young husband might have been to her, than for what he had been.

Elizabeth's eyes filled readily with tears answering to pity or high feeling; but this fierce stifled emotion--this abandonment of pain! Mrs.Gaddesden stood trembling and motionless, the tears on her own cheeks.

Conjecture hurried through her mind.

She seemed to be learning her daughter, her gay and tender Elizabeth, afresh.

At last she turned and crept out of the room, noiselessly shutting the door.