very reason
that my advice is a close fit. Even now I can't understand Sir
Charles's despair of having children of his own."

The writer then turned his looks on the two women, with an entire
absence of expression; the sense of his eyes was turned inward, though
the orbs were directed toward his visitors.

With this lack-luster gaze, and in the tone of thoughtful soliloquy, he
said, "Has Sir Charles Bassett no eyes? and are there women so furtive,
so secret, or so bashful, they do not tell their husbands?"

Lady Bassett turned with a scared look to Mary Wells, and that young
woman showed her usual readiness. She actually came to Mr. Rolfe and
half whispered to him, "If you please, sir, gentlemen are blind, and my
lady she is very bashful; but Sir Charles knows it now; he have known
it a good while; and it was a great comfort to him; he was getting
better, sir, when the villains took him--ever so much better."

This solution silenced Mr. Rolfe, though it did not quite satisfy him.
He fastened on Mary Wells's last statement. "Now tell me: between the
day when those two doctors got into his apartment and the day of his
capture, how long?"

"About a fortnight."

"And in that particular fortnight was there a marked improvement?"

"La, yes, sir; was there not, my lady?"

"Indeed there was, sir. He was beginning to take walks with me in the
garden, and rides in an open carriage. He was getting better every day;
and oh, sir, that is what breaks my heart! I was curing my darling so
fast, and now they will do all they can to destroy him. Their not
letting his wife see him terrifies me."

"I think I can explain that. Now tell me--what time do you expect--a
certain event?"

Lady Bassett blushed and cast a hasty glance at the speaker; but he had
a piece of paper before him, and was preparing to take down her reply,
with the innocent face of a man who had asked a simple and necessary
question in the way of business.

Then Lady Bassett looked at Mary Wells, and this look Mr. Rolfe
surprised, because he himself looked up to see why the lady hesitated.

After an expressive glance between the mistress and maid, the lady
said, almost inaudibly, "More than three months;" and then she blushed
all over.

Mr. Rolfe looked at the two women a moment, and seemed a little puzzled
at their telegraphing each other on such a subject; but he coolly noted
down Lady Bassett's reply on a card about the size of a foolscap sheet,
and then