Three days did lawyer and client devote to the task; for Sir Miles was
minute, and Mr. Parchmount was precise, and little difficulties arose,
and changes in the first outline were made, and Sir Miles, from the very
depth of his disgust, desired not to act only from passion. In that last
deed of his life, the old man was sublime. He sought to rise out of the
mortal, fix his eyes on the Great Judge, weigh circumstances and excuses,
and keep justice even and serene.

Meanwhile, unconscious of the train laid afar, Lucretia reposed on the
mine,--reposed, indeed, is not the word; for she was agitated and
restless that Mainwaring had not obeyed her summons. She wrote to him
again from Southampton the third day of her arrival; but before his
answer came she received this short epistle from London:--

"Mr. Parchmount presents his compliments to Miss Clavering, and, by
desire of Sir Miles St. John, requests her not to return to Laughton.
Miss Clavering will hear further in a few days, when Sir Miles has
concluded the business that has brought him to London."

This letter, if it excited much curiosity, did not produce alarm. It was
natural that Sir Miles should be busy in winding up his affairs; his
journey to London for that purpose was no ill omen to her prospects, and
her thoughts flew back to the one subject that tyrannized over them.
Mainwaring's reply, which came two days afterwards, disquieted her much
more. He had not found the letter she had left for him in the tree. He
was full of apprehensions; he condemned the imprudence of calling on her
at Mr. Fielden's; he begged her to renounce the idea of such a risk. He
would return again to Guy's Oak and search more narrowly: had she changed
the spot where the former letters were placed? Yet now, not even the
non-receipt of her letter, which she ascribed to the care with which she