She did not, she
could not, know what she had said! Yet she spoke with such cruel
appearance of reasoning earnestness; was it possible for a diseased mind
to assume so convincingly the modes of rational utterance? What
conceivable circumstances could bring her to such a resolution? Her
words, 'I do not love you,' made horrible repetition in his ears; it was
as though he had heard her speak them again and again. _Could they be
true_? The question, last outcome of the exercise of his imagination on
the track of that unimaginable cause, brought him to a standstill,
physically and mentally. Those words had at first scarcely engaged his
thought; it was her request to be released that seriously concerned him;
that falsehood had been added as a desperate means of gaining her end.
Yet now, all other explanations in vain exhausted, perforce he gave heed
to that hideous chime of memory. It was not her father's death that
caused her illness that she admitted, Had some horrible complication
intervened, some incredible change come upon her, since he left England?
He shook off this suggestion as blasphemy. Emily? His high-souled Emily,
upon whose faith he would stake the breath of his life? Was his own
reason failing him?

Worn out, he reached the house in the middle of the afternoon, and went
to his own sitting-room. Presently a servant came and asked whether he
would take luncheon. He declined. Lying on the sofa, he still tormented
himself with doubt whether he might speak with Mrs. Baxendale. That lady
put an end to his hesitation by herself coming to his room. He sprang
up.

'Don't move, don't move!' she exclaimed in her cheery way. 'I have only
come to ask why you resolve to starve yourself. You can't have had lunch
anywhere?'

'No; I am not hungry.'

'A headache?' she asked, looking at him with kind shrewdness.

'A little, perhaps.'

'Then at all events you will have tea. May I ask them to bring it here?'

She went away, and, a few minutes after her return, tea was brought.

'You found Emily looking sadly, I'm afraid?' she said, with one of the
provincialisms which occasionally marked her language.

'Yes,' Wilfrid replied; 'she looked far too ill to be up.'

He had seated himself on the sofa. His hands would not hold the tea-cup
steadily; he put it down by his side.

'I fear there is small chance of her getting much better in that house
of illness,' said Mrs. Baxendale, observing his agitation. 'Can't we
persuade