Mary Ursula glanced around as she rose. It would scarcely be convenient for him to come in amid all the ladies; and she desired Sister Ann to take him to the dining-room. A cold, bare room it looked, its solitary candle standing at one end of the dinner-table as she entered. Mr. Knivett came forward and held out his hand.
"Will you forgive my disturbing you at this time, my dear Miss Castlemaine?" he asked. "I should have been here an hour or two ago; but first of all I waited for the violence of the storm to pass; and then, just as I was getting into my gig, a client came up from a distance, and insisted on an interview. Had I put off coming until to-morrow morning, if might have been midday before I got here."
They were sitting down as he spoke: Mary by the end of the table where the candle stood: he drew a chair so close in front of her that his knees nearly touched hers. Mary was inwardly wondering what his visit could relate to. A curious thought, bringing its latent unpleasantness, crossed her--that it might have to do with Anthony.
"My dear lady, I am the bearer of some sad news for you," he began. "People have said, you know, that a lawyer is like a magpie, a bird of ill-omen."
She caught up her breath with a sigh of pain. What was it that he had to tell her?
"It concerns your father's old friend and clerk, Thomas Hill," went on Mr. Knivett. "He was your friend too."
"Is he ill?" gasped Mary.
"He was ill, my dear Miss Castlemaine."
The stress on the one word was so peculiar that the inference seemed all too plain. Mary rose in agitation.
"Surely--surely he is not dead?"