It was in his honourable, if narrow, nature to
tell her frankly that he had recognised his error,
that he knew now that all his generosity, all
the other gifts he had given her, had not availed,
and could not have availed, while George's
society had been denied; but the consigne was
"Mrs. Carruthers must not be agitated," and
the great rule of Mr. Carruthers's life at present
was, that the consigne was not to be violated.
Hence, nothing had been said upon the subject,
and after the subsidence of her first agitation,
Mrs. Carruthers had appeared to take George's
presence very quietly, as she took all other
things.

The aIteration which had taken place in his
wife had tended to allay that unacknowledged
ill which had troubled Mr. Carruthers' peace,
and exacerbated his temper. The old feeling of
jealousy died completely out. The pale, delicate,
fragile woman, whose mind held by the past
now with so very faint a grasp, whose peaceful
thoughts were of the present, whose quiet hopes
were of the future, had nothing in common with
the beautiful young girl whom another than he
had wooed and won. As she was now, as alone
she wished to be, he was first and chief in her
life, and there was not a little exaction or
temporary fretfulness, a single little symptom of
illness and dependence, which had not in it
infinitely more reassuring evidence for Mr.
Carruthers than all the observance of his
wishes, and submission to his domestic laws,
which had formerly made it plainer to Mr.
Carruthers of Poynings that his wife feared than
that she loved him.

And, if it be accounted strange and bordering
on the ludicrous that, at Mr. Carruthers's
respectable age, he should still have been subject
to the feelings tauntingly mentioned as the
"vagaries" of love, it must be remembered that
George's mother was the only woman he had ever
cared for, and that he had only of late achieved
the loftier ideals of love. It was of recent date
that he learned to hold his wife more dear and
precious than Mr. Carruthers of Poynings.

He was not in the least jealous of George. He
liked him. He was clever, Mr. Carruthers
knew; and he rather disapproved of clever people
in the abstract. He had heard, and had no reason
to doubt—certainly none afforded by his step-son's
previous career—that literary people were a bad
lot. He supposed, innocent Mr. Carruthers, that,
to be literary, people must be clever. The
inference was indisputable. But George did not
bore him with his cleverness. He never talked
about The Piccadilly or The Mercury,
reserving his confidences on these points for his
mother and his uncle. The family party paired
off a good deal. Mr. Carruthers and his wife,
Mark Felton and his nephew. And then Mr.
Carruthers had an opportunity of becoming
convinced that the doubts he had allowed to trouble
him had all been groundless, and to learn by
experience that, happy in her son's society, truly
grateful to him for the kindness with which
he watched George, she was happier still in his
company.

To a person of quicker perception than Mr.
Carruthers, the fact that the invalid never spoke
of her faithful old servant would have had much
significance. It would have implied that she
had more entirely lost her memory than other
features and circumstances of her condition
indicated, or that she had regained sufficient
mental firmness and self-control to avoid
anything leading directly or indirectly to the origin
and source of a state of mental weakness of
which she was distressingly conscious. But
Mr. Carruthers lacked quickness and experience,
and he did not notice this. He had pondered,
in his stately way, over Dr. Merle's words, and
he had become convinced that he must have been
right. There had been a "shock." But of what
nature? How, when, had it occurred? Clearly,
these questions could not now, probably could
not ever be, referred to Mrs. Carruthers. Who
could tell him? Clare? Had anything occurred
while he had been absent during the days
immediately preceding his wife's illness? He set
himself now, seriously, to the task of recalling
the circumstances of his return.

He had been met by Clare, who told him
Mrs. Carruthers was not quite well. He had
gone with her to his wife's room. She was
lying in her bed. He remembered that she
looked pale and ill. She was in her dressing-
gown, but otherwise dressed. Then, she had
not been so ill that morning as to have been
unable to leave her bed. If anything had
occurred, it must have taken place after she had
risen as usual. Besides, she had not been
seriously ill until a day or two later—stay, until
how many days? It was on the morning after
Mr. Dalrymple's visit that he had been
summoned to his wife's room; he and Clare were at
breakfast together. Yes, to be sure, he remembered
it all distinctly. Was the "shock" to be
referred to that morning, then? Had it only come
in aid of previously threatening indisposition?
These points Mr. Carruthers could not solve,
He would question Clare on his return, and
find out what she knew, or if she knew
anything. In the mean time, he would not mention
the matter at all, not even to his wife's brother
or her son. Mr. Carruthers of Poynings had
the "defects of his qualities," and the qualities
of his defects, so that his pride, leading to
arrogance in one direction, involved much delicacy
in another, and this sorrow, this fear, this source
of his wife's suffering, whatever it might be,
was a sacred thing for him, so far as its concealment
from all hitherto unacquainted with it was
concerned. Clare might help him to find it out,
and then, if the evil was one within his power to
remedy, it should be remedied; but, in the
mean time, it should not be made the subject of
discussion or speculation. Her brother could
not possibly throw any light on the cause of his
wife's trouble; he was on the other side of the
Atlantic when the blow, let it have come from
whatever unknown quarter, had struck her.
Her son! Where had he been? And asking
himself this question, Mr. Carruthers began to
feel rather uncomfortably hot about the ears, and