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By Root 686 0

swords with a rasp of polished metal. Minute after minute they fought over the body, notwithstanding all her prayers and tears, trampling the dissolving carcase beneath their feet, and staining their shirts with runnels of blood that smoked in the cold air. Then in the space of a moment, Henry was suddenly in the ascendant, pinning his opponent against the earth, and holding his sword across Edmund’s throat; Mary cried out, ‘No! No!’ and as her brother looked up to where she stood, Edmund drew back his sword, and ran his rival through the thigh. Henry slipped to his knees, his eyes all the while on Mary’s face, fixing her with a look of unutterable agony and reproach. She turned to Edmund for mercy, but he rejected her pleas with arrogant disdain, and pushed the point of his sword slowly, slowly through his adversary’s heart. She crawled towards him, as Maddox threw earth and dirt down upon her dying brother, and the rotting corpse of his dead wife; then she awoke in a cold sweat, real tears on her cheeks, and the frightful images still before her eyes.

She did not know how long it was she lay there, trembling and weeping, before she felt able to sit up. It was still dark outside. She had never given any credence to dreams, deeming them to be but the incoherent vagaries of the sleeping mind, and no prognostic or prophecy of what was to come; but while her intellect might attribute her vision to the uneasiness of a weakened and disturbed constitution, her conscience told her otherwise. Her imagination had forced her to contemplate the true nature of the choice she must now make; her heart shrank from the dread prospect, but her mind was clear; she was quite determined, and her resolution varied not.

As soon as the servants were awake she sent a message to the Park, requesting an interview at the belvedere that morning, then made a hasty breakfast, and went out into the garden.

By the time she heard the great clock at Mansfield chime nine, she had been waiting at the appointed place for more than an hour, and the bench offering an uninterrupted view to the house, she was able to watch him approaching for some moments, before he was aware of her presence. His step, she saw, was measured, and his comportment upright. When she rose to her feet and walked to meet him, she perceived, with a pang, that his step quickened.

‘Good morning, Miss Crawford.’

‘Mr Norris.’

‘I must thank you, once more,’ he continued, ‘for the kind service you have afforded my family at this sad time. I have heard from Mrs Baddeley of your exertions in the last stages of Julia’s illness, and I know that you did all in your power to nurse her back to health. We are all, as you might imagine, quite overcome. To lose a daughter and a sister in such terrible circumstances, and so soon after the death of her cousin, it is—well, it is intolerable. My poor uncle will come home only to preside at a double funeral, though his presence will, at least, be an indescribable comfort to my aunt. We expect him in a few days.’

There was a silence, and he perceived, for the first time, that she had not met his gaze.

‘Miss Crawford? Are you quite well?’

‘I am very tired, Mr Norris. I will, if you permit, sit down for a few minutes.’

They walked back, without speaking, to the bench, too preoccupied by their different thoughts to notice a figure in the shadows, just beyond the wall of the belvedere, listening intently to every word they spoke.

Mary took her seat, and was silent a moment, endeavouring to quiet the beating of her heart.

‘I have dreaded this moment, Mr Norris, and more than once I felt my courage would fail me before I came face to face with you. Now that I am here, I beg you will hear me out. I asked to see you because there is some thing I must tell you. It relates to your cousin.’

He frowned a little at this, but said nothing.

‘Some hours before Julia lapsed into her final lethargy, she became very distraught, and began to talk wildly. I did not perceive, at first, what had distressed her to such a dreadful extent, but I am afraid it soon became