"I am not ill; unless uncertainty and anxiety can be called illness. Have you dined?"
"Yes; but your housekeeper insists on hospitality, and will send me up some coffee."
"Did you ever see so complete a picture as she is? Just like those engravings we admire in the old frames."
"Will you describe to me this—the details of the business I came down to hear?"
"I am trying to delay it," she said, with a forced laugh—a laugh that caused Mr. Ravensworth involuntarily to knit his brow, for it spoke of insincerity. "I think I will not tell you anything about it until to-morrow morning."
"I must leave again to-night. The last up-train passes——"
"Oh, but you will stay all night," she interrupted nervously. "I cannot be left alone. Mrs. Edwards is preparing a room for you somewhere."
"Well, we will discuss that by-and-by. What is this unpleasant business about Lord Level?"
"I don't know what it is," she replied. "He has been attacked and stabbed. I only know that it nearly frightened me to death."
"By whom was it done?"