alive? Why, if she thought that what was she to think of her
ladyship? It was in that manner that she would have answered the
question, had she known how; but she did not know; she had therefore
to look about her for some other words which might be equally
evasive. Those which she selected served her turn just as well.
"Lord bless you, sir!" she said. It was not that the words were
expressive, but the tone was decidedly so. It was as though she
said, "How can that man be alive, who has been dead these twenty
years and more?" But nevertheless, she was giving evidence all the
time against the cause of her poor mistress.

"You think, then, that he is dead?"

"Dead, sir! Oh, laws! why shouldn't he be dead?" And then there was
a pause between them for a couple of minutes.

"Mrs. Jones," said Mr. Prendergast, when he had well considered the
matter, "my belief is that your only object and wish is to do good
to your master and mistress."

"Surely, sir, surely; it would be my bounden duty to do them good,
if I knew how."

"I will tell you how. Speak out to me the whole truth openly and
freely. I am here as the friend of Sir Thomas and of her ladyship.
He has sent to me that I may advise him what to do in a great
trouble that has befallen him, and I cannot give him good advice
till I know the truth."

"What good could it do him, poor gentleman, to know that that man is