"What do you mean?" asked George. "Don't trust him? Do you mean that you don't trust his feelings or his conduct to Harriet?" "Precisely so, my dear boy. Mrs. Routh is a devoted wife; but I am very much mistaken--and remember I have been playing looker-on for a fortnight or so, and interested in my part, too, considering what you told me about yourself and these people--if she is not a very unhappy one. I do not pretend to explain my convictions, but I am quite clear about them. She loves Routh--that's plain enough--but she is miserable with him." "Do you really think so? She is dreadfully changed, I know, but I thought it might be only in consequence of her ill health. Miserable with him! At all events, he is not unkind to her. I know he is very anxious about her health; for he has left London, at much inconvenience and great risk of loss, to bring her here for the waters." "And for a turn at the gaming-tables for himself, I fancy. Routh has to me the air of a man who has been constrained into temporary respectability, and is heartily tired of it." "I am sorry you have so bad an opinion of him, sir," said George, who could not resist an uneasy impression that his uncle was right, and that the experiment of a renewed intimacy with Routh was not likely to be brilliantly successful, "for I was thinking of consulting him about the best way of finding out Arthur's whereabouts." "No, no," said Mr. Felton, quickly and emphatically; "say nothing to him about any business of mine; give the man no pretext to fasten an intimacy upon me. We want no cleverness of his kind in our work." "Very well, sir," said George. He was discontented with his uncle, because he had formed what the young man knew in his heart was a just opinion of Routh, and discontented with himself because he could not combat it. "Of course I will speak of your affairs to no one without your permission. But one thing I must say for Routh, I do think he loves his wife." "And I think he hates her," said Mr. Felton. They had turned in their walk, and were close by the little garden gate as he uttered these words. At that moment it opened, and a servant appeared. He told the two gentlemen that Mr. Carruthers wished to see them, and they followed him silently into the house. * * * * * "I am quite clear that the experiment may be tried with safety and advantage," said Dr. Merle, at the close of a long conversation with Mr. Felton and George Dallas. Dr. Merle was an elderly gentleman, with a bald head, a thin face, and eyes as piercing, as strong, and as resolute as those of an eagle; a sort of man to be "quite clear" about his ideas and decisions in general. "I have felt persuaded all along that the state of Mrs. Carruthers's nervous system was produced by a shock, though Mr. Carruthers had no knowledge of the fact, and could supply me with no particulars."