flush and
overflow of tenderness, it fell like a sudden earthquake, rending his
fair edifice of happiness asunder, and casting him out into unexpected
darkness. Sudden confusion, mortification, even a sense of injury and
bitterness, came swelling over his heart as he set a chair for her as
far away as possible from the corner in which he had been indulging
such vain and unwarrantable dreams.

"It happened yesterday," said Lucy; "we have not been quite able to
make out what was the cause; at least _I_ have not been able to find
it out. The clerks at the office say it was something about--but that
does not matter," she went on, with her sweet politeness: "you don't
care for the details. I sometimes fancy Mary knows more than she tells
me, and I think you are in her confidence, Mr Wentworth. But I am not
going to ask you any questions. The doctors say he is not suffering so
much as he seems to be. It is terrible to see him lie there not
knowing any of us," said Lucy, with a tremble in her voice.

"But you thought him better some time ago?" said the Curate, whose
words choked him, and who could not endure to speak.

"Yes, about six o'clock," said Lucy, "he tried to speak, and put Mary
in a great fright, I cannot tell why. Would you be good enough, Mr
Wentworth," she went on hastily, with a strange mixture of earnestness
and coldness, "if you know of anything she is keeping secret, to bid
her tell me? I am able to bear anything there may be to bear--surely
as well as she is, who has had no trouble," said Lucy, softly; and for
a moment she wavered in her fixed composure, and the wall of ice moved
as if it might fall.

"Nor you?" said the Curate, bending anxiously forward to look into her
eyes. He was inexpressibly moved and agitated by the inference, which
perhaps no listener less intensely concerned would have drawn from
what Lucy said. He could not bear that she should have any trouble
which he might not do something to relieve her of.

"Oh, no, nor I," said Lucy, quickly, and in that moment the softening
of tone disappeared entirely. "Mary will be pleased to see you, Mr
Wentworth. I will go and relieve her presently. Papa is asleep just
now, and I was down-stairs giving some directions when you came in. I
wanted to ask you to look after that poor woman at No. 10. She still
keeps living on, and I have not been able to see her today. She misses
me when I don't go," said Lucy, with a very little unconscious sigh.
"Woul