For the first three days Prudence was devotedly attentive; she scarcely left his side, and her devotion was plainly spontaneous. A slight fever had set in, though the wounded throat was doing as well as such a hurt could do. Prudence began to grow listless in the very slightest degree. Lawrence made her leave him and go down into the court, where a party were heard laughing and talking. After she had gone, with painful intentness he listened for her voice. Ah! there it was. He raised himself on his elbow. Yes, honey sweet, gay, seductive, suggestive. He listened, his wounded throat throbbing as he did so. It was not that he desired to know what she said, it was only her tones that he must hear. And he groaned as he heard them. He wished he might be able to understand her. He was not the first man who has wished to be able to understand a woman. As Lawrence sank again on his couch, another day came back to his mind,--that day when he had been lying in his room at Savin Hill and had heard Prudence laugh outside. Then he had been going to marry Carolyn Ffolliott. Then--he groaned again and moved uneasily. It was terrible for a man like Lawrence to have one spot in his life which he dared not touch. He winced every time he came near that place in his mind. He wished that it might be covered up, encysted like some morbid growth in the body, and not remain so atrociously alive. As a man runs away from some place where he knows he will be hurt, so Lawrence's mind always ran away from the thought of Carolyn. Yet somehow, within the last few weeks, he could not help thinking of her. He had stopped his ears against any news from Savin Hill. He even shrank from looking too closely at a Boston newspaper, lest he should see the name of Ffolliott. Not a week ago Prudence had silently put before him a paper with her finger on a paragraph. This was the paragraph: "At a reception lately given by Mrs. Letitia Ffolliott at her residence on Commonwealth Avenue, among the prominent guests was Lord Maxwell. His lordship came to the States some months ago, bringing an invalid wife. His friends will learn with regret that Lady Maxwell has since died. We understand that Lord Maxwell will remain in Boston for some weeks." Lawrence's lip curled as he read these lines, and Mrs. Lawrence laughed. "His lordship!" she exclaimed, and laughed again. "How the fair women will smile upon him!" cynically remarked Lawrence; and he added, "Well, he hasn't a teaspoonful of brains, but he has his title." "Yes," said Prudence, "and now he has the brewer's money without the brewer's daughter. Perhaps he will marry Carolyn Ffolliott." Having sent this shaft, Prudence refrained from looking to see if it went home. Lawrence said quietly that he did not believe Carolyn would marry a man she did not love; but then, she might love Maxwell. And here the subject had dropped; but neither of these two forgot it.