"As it seems to me. Going over the various circumstances, as I do on occasion when I have a minute to myself, I try to fit the probability into another, and I cannot compass it. We must trust to time, Mrs. Cumberland. Good-morning." Richard raised his hat, and left her. She sat on with her pain. Mrs. Cumberland was as strictly rigid a woman in tenets as in temperament; her code of morality was a severe one. Over and over again had she asked herself whether--it is of no use to mince the matter any longer--Oliver had or had not written that anonymous letter which had killed Edmund North: and she could not answer the question. But, if he had done it, why then surely he ought not to wed the sister. It would be little less than sin. Since this secret trouble had been upon her, more than a month now, her face had seemed to assume a greyer tinge. How grey it looked now, as she sat on the bench, passers-by saw, and almost started. One of them was Mr. Alexander. Arresting his quick steps--he always walked quickly--he inquired after her health. "Not any better and not much worse," she answered. "Complaints, such as mine, are always tediously prolonged." "They are less severe to bear, however, than sharper ones," said the doctor, willing to administer a grain of comfort if he could. "What a lovely day! And madam's off for a couple of months, I hear." "Have the two any connection with each other, Mr. Alexander?" "I don't know," he said laughing. "Her presence makes winter at the Hall, and her absence its sunshine. If I had such a wife, I'm not sure that I should think it any sin to give her an overdose of laudanum some day, out of regard to the general peace. Did you hear of her putting Miss Bessy's wrist out?" "No." "She did it, then. Something sent her into a passion with Miss Bessy; she caught her hand and flung it away so violently that the wrist began to swell. I was sent for to bind it up. Why such women are allowed to live, I can't imagine." "I suppose because they are not fit to die," said Mrs. Cumberland. "When are you leaving?" "Sometime in July, I think, or during August. I enter on my new post the first of September, so there's no especial hurry in the matter." Mrs. Cumberland rose and continued her slow way homewards. Passing her own house, she entered that of her son. Dr. Rane was engaged with a patient, so she went on to the dining-room and waited. He came in shortly, perhaps thinking it might be another patient, his face bright. It fell a little when he saw his mother. Her visits to him were so exceedingly rare that some instinct whispered him nothing pleasant had brought her there. She rose and faced him. "Oliver, is what I hear true--that you are shortly to be married?" "I suppose it is, mother," was his answer. "But--is there no impediment that should bar it?" she asked in a whisper.