nd arriving at no positive
conclusion, he left the study, and went into the drawing-room to consult
his wife.

He found her working industriously by the blazing fire. She looked so
happy and comfortable--so gentle and charming in her pretty little lace
cap, and her warm brown morning-dress, with its bright cherry-colored
ribbons, and its delicate swan's down trimming circling round her neck
and nestling over her bosom, that he stooped and kissed her with the
tenderness of his bridegroom days before he spoke. When he told her of
the cause that had suspended his literary occupation, she listened, with
the sensation of the kiss still lingering in her downcast eyes and
her smiling lips, until he came to the subject of his Diary and its
reference to the newspaper.

As he mentioned the name of the _Times_ she altered and looked him
straight in the face gravely.

"Can you suggest any plan, love," he went on, "which may save me the
necessity of a journey to London at this bleak time of the year? I must
positively have this information, and, so far as I can see, London is
the only place at which I can hope to meet with a file of the _Times_."

"A file of the _Times?_" she repeated.

"Yes--of eight years since," he said.

The instant the words passed his lips he saw her face overspread by
a ghastly paleness; her eyes fixed on him with a strange mixture of
rigidity and vacancy in their look; her hands, with her work held tight
in them, dropped slowly on her lap, and a shiver ran through her from
head to foot.

He sprang to his feet, and snatched the smelling-salts from her
work-table, thinking she was going to faint. She put the bottle from
her, when he offered it, with a hand that thrilled him with the deadly
coldness of its touch, and said, in a whisper:

"A sudden chill, dear--let me go upstairs and lie down."

He took her to her room. As he laid her down on the bed, she caught his
hand, and said, entreatingly:

"You won't go to London, darling, and leave me here ill?"

He promised that nothing should separate him from her until she was well
again, and then ran downstairs to send for the doctor. The doctor came,
and pronounced that Mrs. Carling was only suffering from a nervous
attack; that there was not the least reason to be alarmed; and that,
with proper care, she would be well again in a few days.

Both husband and wife had a dinner engagement in the town for that
evening. Mr. Carling proposed to write an apo