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120 BLACK SHEEP.rible conviction of the first moment of revelationforcibly restored.The dreadful truth haunted her. When SirThomas Boldero asked her ladyship if there wasany news in the Times each morning (for theSycamores was governed byother laws than thosewhich ruled Poynings, anclLady Boldero, who wasinterested in politics after her preserves and herlinen-presses, always read the papers first), Clarehad listened with horrid sickening fear for manyand many a dajr. But suspense of this sort cannotlast in its first vitality, andit had lessened,butit wasnot wholly dead evenyet. One subject ofspeculation frequently occupied her. Had he seenthe warning she had ventured to send him? No,she yvould sometimes say to herself, decisively-, no,he had not seen it. His safety must have beenotheryvise secured; if he had seen it, he yvouldknow that the terrible truth yvas known to her,and he would never have dared to recall himself toher memory. For he did so recall himself, andthis was the most terrible part of it all for Clare.On the first day of each month she received thecurrent number of the Piccadilly, and there was