Handassah answered not, but bent her head, as if in acquiescence.
Steps were now heard near the door, and a servant ushered in Dr. Small and Mrs. Mowbray.
"I am come to take leave of you for the night, my dear young lady," said the doctor; "but before I start for the Vicarage, I have a word or two to say, in addition to the advice you were so obliging as to receive from me this morning. Suppose you allow your attendant to retire for a few minutes. What I have got to say concerns yourself solely. Your mother will bear us company. There," continued the doctor, as Handassah was dismissed—"I am glad that dark-faced gipsy has taken her departure. I can't say I like her sharp suspicious manner, and the first exercise I should make at my powers, were I to be your husband, should be to discharge the handmaiden. To the point of my visit. We are alone, I think. This is a queer old house, Miss Mowbray; and this is the queerest part of it. Walls have ears, they say; and there are so many holes and corners in this mansion, that one ought never to talk secrets above one's breath."
"I am yet to learn, sir," said Eleanor, "that there is any secret to be communicated."
"Why, not much, I own," replied the doctor; "at least what has occurred is no secret in the house by this time. What do you think has happened?"
"It is impossible for me to conjecture. Nothing to Ranulph, I hope."
"Nothing of consequence, I trust,—though he is part concerned with it."
"What is it?" asked Eleanor.
"Pray satisfy her curiosity, doctor," interposed Mrs. Mowbray.
"Well, then," said Small, rather more gravely, "the fact of the matter stands thus:—Lady Rookwood, who, as you know, was not the meekest wife in the world, now turns out by no means the gentlest mother, and has within this hour found out that she has some objection to your union with her son."