"I am too nervous, too ill and unstrung to
go with you," he answered, " and I thought
that perhaps you would stay at home with
me, and read. Will you, Evy?" He took
her hand—still the same timid manner.

"O dear me, no? Stay at home? O, no!
You had better go to bed if you are ill,"
Eveline said, leaving her hand cold and dead
in his. " That will be much wiser than sitting
up half the night reading stupid poetry that
only makes one yawn and go to sleep.
I will tell Justine to give you anything you
want when I am away; but really you had
better go to bed at once."

Charles let her hand fall. " Who is going
with you, then, as I cannot?" he said.

Eveline walked away to the mirror, humming
a tune and arranging her bouquet. " My
mother—” she said. " And Horace Graham,"
she added, turning suddenly round, fixing her
eyes on her husband with a peculiar look.
A look that defied suspicion, and was
beforehand with objection. A look that conquered,
because it wounded, Charles, and made him
humble and submissive.

He rose from the sofa slowly, and passed
into the library, there to fret like a sorrowing
child; scarcely knowing what he thought or
what he ought not to think; feeling only
that his happiness was slipping from his
grasp, and that he was being left alone on a
desolate shore without hope and without
love.

This was the first rising of the mask—the
first confessed declaration of indifference—a
declaration repeated subsequently every day
and every hour. Eveline was never at home.
Morning and evening alike saw her drowned
in the world's great sea of pleasures; every
home affection cast aside, and every wifely
duty unfulfilled. Gaiety was her life; and,
without this gaiety, she would die, she would
say. Charles grew ill, and certainly excessively
strange and disagreeable in his behaviour.
For hours together he would sit
without speaking, his lips pressed against
each other, and his dull eyes fixed on the
ground. Then came fits of passion, which
were like the throes of madness—fits that
terrified Eveline, and made her fear for herself.
To these a violent reaction succeeded;
a period, generally very brief, of frantic
gaiety and restless pleasure-seeking, such as
incommoded Eveline greatly, binding him to
her side without release; and under the
appearance of complaisance, giving her a gaoler
and a spy. Often at such times, struck to the
heart with something he had seen, chilled
by something he had heard, Fitzgerald would
fall back again into his mournful stupor, and
drag out his weary life with the listless,
hopeless expression in his face and in his
whole manner of a condemned criminal.

The world began to talk. It talked,
although gently, of Eveline's open flirtation
with Horace Graham; gently, because it
talked also of Charles Fitzgerald's jealousy
and strange irritability; of his violence and
his fearful temper. On the other hand, it
spoke of his evident unhappiness, and of the
contempt showered on him by his wife and
his adopted family; it darkly adumbrated a
lunacy commission on one side, and Doctors'
Commons on the other. At last the whisper
grew so long and loud that it spread down
to Ormsby Green, and penetrated to Mrs.
Fitzgerald. The echo of this dread whisper
had sounded long ago in her own heart; she
had looked for its coming; and when it found
her, she started without an hour's delay for
London; and, not caring for the cold reception
she would probably meet with, she presented
herself at once at the house of her son.
Eveline was from home. She was riding in
the park with Horace, to try a horse he had
that day bought for her. Charles was in
the library, sitting in one of those dumb, dull
sorrows that are far more painful to witness
than the most turbulent passion.

He looked up with his glazed fiery eyes as
his mother entered; and started and stared
wildly, rising and retreating as if he did not
know her, but trying with all his might to
recognise her. She came forward, speaking
cheerily and kindly.

"Well, Charles, my love, I have taken you
by surprise!" she said. But her voice failed;
he was so wild and altered. He kept his
eyes upon her for some time, and then with
a cry that came straight from the sad heart,
almost breaking it, with sobs wild and fast,
and tears which fell like blighting rain,
Fitzgerald exclaimed, " Mother, mother, you have
come to see me die!"

The line of ice was thawed, the band of
iron was broken, the stifled heart cried out
aloud, and the love that had been thrust
back into the darkness came forth again. He
was no longer alone with nothing but
indifference or enmity to bear him company.
He had now his own best friend, the guardian
of his youth, his friend and guide: he might
count now on one heart at least, and believe
that it loved him. He poured out his grievances
to her. They were all very vague and
indefinite; simply wounded feelings, or affections
misunderstood; no startling facts, no
glaring wickedness, no patent actions. But
she understood, and sympathised with his
sufferings; impalpable as they were. She
soothed and comforted him, calming his
irritated nerves and weaving bright dreams
of hope for the future. Dreams, in which she
believed nothing herself, and which smote
her conscience as falsehoods when she told
them.

Next morning she spoke to Eveline, in
her grave, bland, gracious manner, and gave
her serious counsel, sweetening her censure
with assurances of her trust in the giddy
wife's good intentions—"but then you are
young, my child, and youth is often curiously
heedless!"  But Eveline gave herself
unnumbered airs, and was very ill-used, and said