"No, no; you have done your part, and God bless you for it. You must not
stay here. Your ladyship's very presence, and your agitation, would set
the servants talking, and some idiot-fiend among them babbling--there is
nothing so terrible as a fool."

"May I remain at the inn, sir; just one night?"

"Oh yes, I wish you would; and I will run over, if all is well with
her--well with her? poor unfortunate girl!"

Lady Cicely saw he wished her gone, and she went directly.

At nine o'clock that same evening, as she lay on a sofa in the best room
of the inn, attended by her maid, Dr. Philip Staines came to her. She
dismissed her maid.

Dr. Philip was too old, in other words, had lost too many friends, to
be really broken down by bereavement; but he was strangely subdued. The
loud tones were out of him, and the loud laugh, and even the keen sneer.
Yet he was the same man; but with a gentler surface; and this was not
without its pathos.

"Well, madam," said he gravely and quietly. "It is as it always has
been. 'As is the race of leaves, so that of man.' When one falls,
another comes. Here's a little Christopher come, in place of him that is
gone: a brave, beautiful boy, ma'am; the finest but one I ever brought
into the world. He is come to take his father's place in our hearts--I
see you valued his poor father, ma'am--but he comes too late for me. At
your age, ma'am, friendships come naturally; they spring like loves in