"The deuce I am! Who wants to get rid of you?"

"That shall come last. I have something to do, and somebody else
does want to see me. I've got a letter from Mary here, and another
from Mrs. Thomas;" and he held up to view two letters which he had
received, and which had, in truth, startled him.

"Mary's duenna;--the artist who is supposed to be moulding the wife."

"Yes; Mary's duenna, or Mary's artist, whichever you please."

"And which of them wants to see you? It's just like a woman, to
require a man's attendance exactly when he is unable to move."

Then Felix, though he did not give up the letters to be read,
described to a certain extent their contents. "I don't know what
on earth has happened," he said. "Mary is praying to be forgiven,
and saying that it is not her fault; and Mrs. Thomas is full
of apologies, declaring that her conscience forces her to tell
everything; and yet, between them both, I do not know what has
happened."

"Miss Snow has probably lost the key of the workbox you gave her."

"I have not given her a workbox."

"Then the writing-desk. That's what a man has to endure when he will
make himself head schoolmaster to a young lady. And so you're going
to look after your charge with your limbs still in bandages?"

"Just so;" and then he took up the two letters and read them again,
while Staveley still sat on the foot of the bed. "I wish I knew what
to think about it," said Felix.

"About what?" said the other. And then there was another pause, and
another reading of a portion of the letters.

"There seems something--something almost frightful to me," said Felix
gravely, "in the idea of marrying a girl in a few months' time, who
now, at so late a period of our engagement, writes to me in that sort
of cold, formal way."

"It's the proper moulded-wife style, you may depend," said Augustus.

"I'll tell you what, Staveley, if you can talk to me seriously for
five minutes, I shall be obliged to you. If that is impossible to
you, say so, and I will drop the matter."

"Well, go on; I am serious enough in what I intend to express, even
though I may not be so in my words."

"I'm beginning to have my doubts about this dear girl."

"I've had my doubts for some time."

"Not, mark you, with regard to myself. The question is not now
whether I can love her sufficiently for my own happiness. On that
side I have no longer the right to a doubt."

"But you wouldn't marry her if you did not love her