re taking me quite out of my depth. The looks of servant
girls! Why, of course a lady in your condition is an object of especial
interest to them. I dare say they are saying to one another, 'I wonder
when my turn will come!' A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind--that
is a proverb, is it not?"

"To be sure. I forgot that."

She said no more; but seemed thoughtful, and not quite satisfied.

On this Dr. Philip begged the maids to go near her as little as
possible. "You are not aware of it," said he, "but your looks, and
your manner of speaking, rouse her attention, and she is quicker than I
thought she was, and observes very subtly."

This was done; and then she complained that nobody came near her. She
insisted on coming down-stairs; it was so dull.

Dr. Philip consented, if she would be content to receive no visits for a
week.

She assented to that; and now passed some hours every day in the
drawing-room. In her morning wrappers, so fresh and crisp, she looked
lovely, and increased in health and strength every day.

Dr. Philip used to look at her, and his very flesh would creep at the
thought that, ere long, he must hurl this fair creature into the dust
of affliction; must, with a word, take the ruby from her lips, the rose
from her cheeks, the sparkle from her glorious eyes--eyes that beamed
on him with sweet affection, and a mouth that never opened, but to show
some simplicity of mind, or some pretty burst of the sensitive heart.

He put off, and put off, and at last cowardice began to whisper, "Why
tell her the whole truth at all? Why not take her through stages of
doubt, alarm, and, after all, leave a grain of hope till her child gets
so rooted in her heart that"--But conscience and good sense interrupted
this temporary thought, and made him see to what a horrible life of
suspense he should condemn a human creature, and live a perpetual lie,
and be always at the edge of some pitfall or other.

One day, while he sat looking at her, with all these thoughts, and many
more, coursing through his mind, she looked up at him, and surprised
him. "Ah!" said she gravely.

"What is the matter, my dear?"

"Oh, nothing," said she cunningly.

"Uncle, dear," said she presently, "when do we go to Herne Bay?"

Now, Dr. Philip had given that up. He had got the servants at Kent Villa
on his side, and he felt safer here than in any strange place: so he
said, "I don't know: that all depends. There is plenty of time."