To a person of quicker perception than Mr. Carruthers, the fact that the invalid never spoke of her faithful old servant would have had much significance. It would have implied that she had more entirely lost her memory than other features and circumstances of her condition indicated, or that she had regained sufficient mental firmness and self-control to avoid anything leading directly or indirectly to the origin and source of a state of mental weakness of which she was distressingly conscious. But Mr. Carruthers lacked quickness and experience, and he did not notice this. He had pondered, in his stately way, over Dr. Merle's words, and he had become convinced that he must have been right. There had been a "shock." But of what nature? How, when, had it occurred? Clearly, these questions could not now, probably could not ever, be referred to Mrs. Carruthers. Who could tell him? Clare? Had anything occurred while he had been absent during the days immediately preceding his wife's illness? He set himself now, seriously, to the task of recalling the circumstances of his return. He had been met by Clare, who told him Mrs. Carruthers was not quite well. He had gone with her to his wife's room. She was lying in her bed. He remembered that she looked pale and ill. She was in her dressing-gown, but otherwise dressed. Then she had not been so ill that morning as to have been unable to leave her bed. If anything had occurred, it must have taken place after she had risen as usual Besides, she had not been seriously ill until a day or two later--stay, until how many days? It was on the morning after Mr. Dalrymple's visit that he had been summoned to his wife's room; he and Clare were at breakfast together. Yes, to be sure, he remembered it all distinctly. Was the "shock" to be referred to that morning, then? Had it only come in aid of previously threatening indisposition? These points Mr. Carruthers could not solve. He would question Clare on his return, and find out what she knew, or if she knew anything. In the mean time, he would not mention the matter at all, not even to his wife's brother or her son. Mr. Carruthers of Poynings had the "defects of his qualities," and the qualities of his defects, so that his pride, leading to arrogance in one direction, involved much delicacy in another, and this sorrow, this fear, this source, of his wife's suffering, whatever it might be, was a sacred thing for him, so far as its concealment from all hitherto unacquainted with it was concerned. Clare might help him to find it out, and then, if the evil was one within his power to remedy, it should be remedied; but in the mean time, it should not be made the subject of discussion or speculation. Her brother could not possibly throw any light on the cause of his wife's trouble; he was on the other side of the Atlantic when the blow, let it have come from whatever unknown quarter, had struck her. Her son! Where had he been? And asking himself this question, Mr.