" That was
her reply. The doctor wanted to hear no more; he at once advised that
Kitty should be taken to the seaside, and that everything which might
remind her of the absent friend--books, presents, even articles of
clothing likely to revive old associations--should be left at home. A
new life, in new air. When pen, ink, and paper were offered to him, that
was the doctor's prescription.

Mrs. Linley consulted her husband on the choice of the seaside place to
which the child should be removed.

The blank which Sydney's departure left in the life of the household was
felt by the master and mistress of Mount Morven--and felt, unhappily,
without any open avowal on either side of what was passing in their
minds. In this way the governess became a forbidden subject between
them; the husband waited for the wife to set the example of approaching
it, and the wife waited for the husband. The trial of temper produced by
this state of hesitation, and by the secret doubts which it encouraged,
led insensibly to a certain estrangement--which Linley in particular was
morbidly unwilling to acknowledge. If, when the dinner-hour brought them
together, he was silent and dull in his wife's presence, he attributed
it to anxiety on the subject of his brother--then absent on a critical
business errand in London. If he sometimes left the house the first
thing in the morning, and only returned at night, it was because the
management of the model farm had become one of his duties, in Randal's
absence. Mrs. Linley made no attempt to dispute this view of the altered
circumstances in home-life--but she submitted with a mind ill at ease.
Secretly fearing that Linley was suffering under Miss Westerfield's
absence, she allowed herself to hope that Kitty's father would see a
necessity, in his own case, for change of scene, and would accompany
them to the seaside.

"Won't you come with us, Herbert?" she suggested, when they had both
agreed on the choice of a place.

His temper was in a state of constant irritation. Without meaning it he
answered her harmless question sharply.

"How can I go away with you, when we are losing by the farm, and when
there is nobody to check the ruinous expenses but myself?"

Mrs. Linley's thoughts naturally turned to Randal's prolonged absence.
"What can be keeping him all this time in London?" she said.

Linley's failing patience suffered a severe trial.

"Don't you know," he broke out, "that I have inherited my