n
had dismissed the gaping servants. She saw that he had divined her
calamity and she knew from things he said to her that he would never
breathe a word out-of-doors. She confided in him. She told him Mr.
Bassett was the real cause of all this misery: he had insulted Sir
Charles. The nature of this insult she suppressed. "And oh, Mr.
Angelo," said she, "that man is my terror night and day! I don't know
what he can do, but I feel he will do something if he ever learns my
poor husband's condition."

"I trust, Lady Bassett, you are convinced he will learn nothing from
me. Indeed, I will tell the ruffian anything you like. He has been
sounding me a little; called to inquire after his poor cousin--the
hypocrite!"

"How good you are! Please tell him absolute repose is prescribed for a
time, but there is no doubt of Sir Charles's ultimate recovery."

Mr. Angelo promised heartily.

Mary Wells was not enough; a woman must have a man to lean on in
trouble, and Lady Bassett leaned on Mr. Angelo. She even obeyed him.
One day he told her that her own health would fail if she sat always in
the sick-room; she must walk an hour every day.

_"Must_ I?" said she, sweetly.

"Yes, even if it is only in your own garden."

From that time she used to walk with him nearly every day.

Richard Bassett saw this from his tower of observation; saw it, and
chuckled. "Aha!" said he. "Husband sick in bed. Wife walking in the
garden with a young man--a parson, too. He is dark, she is fair.
Something will come of this. Ha, ha!"

Lady Bassett now talked of sending to London for advice; but Mary Wells
dissuaded her. "Physic can't cure him. There's only one can cure him,
and that is yourself, my lady."

"Ah, would to Heaven I could!"

"Try _my_ way, and you will see, my lady."

"What, _that_ way! Oh, no, no!"

"Well, then, if you won't, nobody else can."

Such speeches as these, often repeated, on the one hand, and Sir
Charles's melancholy on the other, drove Lady Bassett almost wild with
distress and perplexity.

Meanwhile her vague fears of Richard Bassett were being gradually
realized.

Bassett employed Wheeler to sound Dr. Willis as to his patient's
condition.

Dr. Willis, true to the honorable traditions of his profession, would
tell him nothing. But Dr. Willis had a wife. She pumped him: and
Wheeler pumped her.

By this channel Wheeler got a somewhat exaggerated account of Sir
Charles's state. He carried it to Bassett, and t