"No; I particularly wish you not to come."

"Oh, indeed."

"Yes; and she wishes the same. It would make her seriously worse if

you were to come. It would almost kill her....My errand is of a

peculiar and awkward nature. It is concerning a subject which weighs

on her mind--that unfortunate arrangement she made with you, that you

might have her body--after death."

"Oh! Grammer Oliver, the old woman with the fine head. Seriously ill,

is she!"

"And SO disturbed by her rash compact! I have brought the money

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back--will you please return to her the agreement she signed?" Grace

held out to him a couple of five-pound notes which she had kept ready

tucked in her glove.

Without replying or considering the notes, Fitzpiers allowed his

thoughts to follow his eyes, and dwell upon Grace's personality, and

the sudden close relation in which he stood to her. The porch was

narrow; the rain increased. It ran off the porch and dripped on the

creepers, and from the creepers upon the edge of Grace's cloak and

skirts.

"The rain is wetting your dress; please do come in," he said. "It

really makes my heart ache to let you stay here."

Immediately inside the front door was the door of his sitting-room; he

flung it open, and stood in a coaxing attitude. Try how she would,

Grace could not resist the supplicatory mandate written in the face and

manner of this man, and distressful resignation sat on her as she

glided past him into the room--brushing his coat with her elbow by

reason of the narrowness.

He followed her, shut the door--which she somehow had hoped he would

leave open--and placing a chair for her, sat down. The concern which

Grace felt at the development of these commonplace incidents was, of

course, mainly owing to the strange effect upon her nerves of that view

of him in the mirror gazing at her with open eyes when she had thought

him sleeping, which made her fancy that his slumber might have been a

feint based on inexplicable reasons.

She again proffered the notes; he awoke from looking at her as at a

piece of live statuary, and listened deferentially as she said, "Will

you then reconsider, and cancel the bond which poor Grammer Oliver so

foolishly gave?"

"I'll cancel it without reconsideration. Though you will allow me to

have my own opinion about her foolishness. Grammer is a very wise

woman, and she was as wise in that as in other things. You think there

was something very fiendish in the compact, do you not, Miss Melbury?

But remember that the most eminent of our surgeons in past times have

entered into such agreements."




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