ard
judge. When he got over the painful sense that there must be something
more in this than met the eye, he was half glad to find that Lucy was
like other women--a dear little fool, not always sensible. He thought
almost the better of her for it, he said to himself. She would laugh
herself at her panic, whatever it was, when little Tom woke up fresh and
fair in the morning light.

With this idea he did what he could to satisfy himself. The situation
was strange, unprecedented in his experience; but he had many subjects
of thought on his own part which returned to his mind as the surprise of
the moment calmed down. He had a great deal to think about. Old
difficulties which seemed to have passed away for long years were now
coming back again to embarrass and confuse him. "Our pleasant vices are
made the whips to scourge us," he said to himself. The past had come
back to him like the opening of a book, no longer merely frivolous and
amusing, as in the Contessa's talk, touched with all manner of light
emotions, but bitter, with tragedy in it, and death and desolation.
Death and life: he had heard enough of the dead to make them seem alive
again, and of the living to confuse their identity altogether; but he
had not yet succeeded in clearing up the doubt which had been thrown
into his mind. That question about Bice's parentage, "English on one
side," tormented him still. He had made again an attempt to discover the
truth, and he had been foiled. The probabilities seemed all in favour of
the solution which at the first word had presented itself to him; but
still there was a chance that it might not be so.

His mind had been full and troubled enough, when he returned to the
still house, and thought with compunction how many thoughts which he
could not share with her he was bringing back to Lucy's side. He could
not trust them to her, or confide in her, and secure her help, as in
many other circumstances he would have done without hesitation. But he
could not do that in this case,--not so much because she was his wife,
as because she was so young, so innocent, so unaware of the
complications of existence. How could she understand the temptations
that assail a young man in the heyday of life, to whom many indulgences
appear permissible or venial, which to her limited and innocent soul
would seem unpardonable sins? To live even for a few years with a
stainless nature like that of Lucy, in whom there was not even so much
knowle