I shall ever have consumption?" fumbling
for my handkerchief, forgetting in whose possession it was. Charles
came in at that instant, and I remembered that he had it.

"What on earth has happened to you? Oh!" she exclaimed, as I looked at
her. "You were out there with Morgeson and Ben Somers," she whispered;
"something has occurred; what is it?"

"You shall never know; never--never--never."

"Cassandra, that man is a devil."

"I like devils."

"The same blood rages in both of you."

"It's mulled wine,--thick and stupid."

"Nonsense."

"Will there be tea, at supper?"

"You shall have some."

"Ask Ben to order it."

"Heaven forgive us all, Cassandra!"

"Remember the tea."

Charles stood near his wife; wherever she moved afterwards he moved.
I saw it, and felt that it was the shadow of something which would
follow.

At last the time came for us to return. Helen had plied me with tea,
and was otherwise watchful, but scarcely spoke.

"It is an age," I said, "since I left Rosville."

She raised her eyebrows merely, and asked me if I would have more tea.

"In my room," I thought, "I shall find myself again." And as I opened
my door, it welcomed me with so friendly and silent an aspect, that I
betrayed my grief, and it covered my misery as with a cloak.

CHAPTER XX.

Helen was called home by the illness of her father and did not return
to Rosville. She would write me, she said; but it was many weeks
before I received a letter. Ben Somers about this time took a fit of
industry, and made a plan for what he called a well-regulated life,
averring that he should always abide by it. Every hour had its duty,
which must be fulfilled. He weighed his bread and meat, ate so many
ounces a day, and slept watch and watch, as he nautically termed it.
I guessed that the meaning of his plan was to withdraw from the
self-chosen post of censor. His only alienation was an occasional
disappearance for a few days. I never asked him where he went, and had
never spoken to him concerning his mysterious remark about having
been in Surrey. Neither had I heard anything of his being there from
father. Once he told me that his father had explained the marriage of
old Locke Morgeson; but that it was not clear to him that we were at
all related.

In consequence of his rigorous life, I saw little of him. Though
urged by Alice, he did not come to our house, and we rarely met him
elsewhere. People called him eccentric, but