"No," she replied; "only that you have been on a visit to a nurse who was in the service of my husband's family before the death of his parents. I did not seek for further information, and my husband did not volunteer any. Neither is he acquainted with the details of the matter I am about to open to you. I thought it best to keep it from him until I obtained counsel from a near and dear friend." I inclined my head, and she continued: "My husband informs me that he has related to you the fullest particulars of his life, and that he has unbosomed himself to you with an unreserved confidence, such as no other person in the world has been able to inspire." "It is true," I said, "and I hold his confidence sacred, to be used only for our good." "And for the good of our children," she said. "Yes," I said, conscious of a strange note in my voice as I repeated the words, "and for the good of our children." She detected the unusual note, gazed steadily at me for a moment, and proceeded, without commenting upon it. "Knowing so much, you are familiar with my husband's nightly wanderings in the woods when he resided here with his parents?" "Yes." "He was aware of these nocturnal rambles?" she said. "He undertook them consciously?" "Certainly." "He was always awake when he left the house and returned to it?" "Always," I replied, surprised at the question. "He has given me full permission to put any questions to you with respect to the confidence he has reposed in you. 'If I have kept anything from you,' he said to me this morning, 'it has been done to save you from uneasiness;' and he added with a smile that he had concealed nothing from me for which he had reason to reproach himself. Certain habits, contracted during a lonely youth, had left their impress upon him, and unusual as they were, there was no harm in them. 'Of one thing be sure,' he said; 'I have lived a pure and blameless life.' I did not need his assurance to convince me of that. As Reginald's father, you should be glad to know it." "I am glad to know it," I said, and again I was aware of the strange note in my voice, "as Reginald's father and your husband's friend." "I will explain," she said, "why I asked you whether my husband had any reason to believe that occasionally he walked abroad at night when he was not awake. He has done so for some years past at certain times and under certain circumstances. He did so last night." "Is he not now aware of it?" I inquired. "No, I have never informed him that he is a sleep-walker. My reason for keeping this knowledge from him is that I am convinced it would have greatly distressed him; but what occurred last night has so disturbed me that I can no longer be silent." My suspicions of the truth of Mrs. Fortress's statement began to fade. Here was confirmation that the son had inherited one phase, at least, of his mother's disease.