Lady Markham opened the door, and came into the room before Fairfax could reply. She was preoccupied, and took no notice of the conversation that was going on. “Your father has fallen asleep,” she said; “he is very much exhausted. Oh, how I wish we had not left home.” Then she perceived Fairfax, and added with a change of tone, “You have had no breakfast. Alice, I thought you would attend to Mr. Fairfax.” “Oh!” cried Alice, “do you think he cares about breakfast when we are in such trouble? He has been telling me about Paul. Mamma, listen to him. He must know. He says it is all Paul’s magnanimity--that was the word.” “Oh, my dear, my dear,” cried Lady Markham, “it is my fault. I have made everything worse. Oh! why will women interfere? We ought to have stayed at home, and had patience. What can we do one way or another? I have behaved like a fool and got my boy into more trouble. And now your father. What shall we do if he is ill too?” “Mamma, it is impossible that you can be to blame.” “Quite impossible!” cried Fairfax. What gave him any right to speak? Yet they took it as a matter of course. “And pardon me, Lady Markham, I do not think there is any one much to blame. There is no harm in it at all. If you could but see behind the scenes as I do! Spears is an enthusiast--say a fanatic; he believes all he says, and Paul believes him and thinks he thinks with him; but he does not altogether; and they will differ more and more as time goes on. Patience, and it will come right.” “Ah, if I could have had patience! Do you know what anxiety means?” said Lady Markham. “It is a determination not to be unhappy. What does it matter whether I am happy or not--I have been very happy all my life. I ought to bear it, and wait till God sends a cure; but we would not, Alice--we would rush into it, knowing nothing, meddling. Oh, why should women interfere!” This strained Alice’s sense of natural justice. “Have not women as much to do with it as men?” she said. Lady Markham shook her head. “I have made things worse--I have made everything worse. Mr. Fairfax, will you go and tell Paul that his father is ill? Oh no, I have no right to ask you to take so much trouble; but you are kind, I know. You have a mother who would go out of her senses too, if anything was amiss. When you tell her she will explain it all to you; how foolish, how foolish a woman can be. Go and tell him that his father is ill. His father is not a man to be ill for nothing. He will see it is no light matter when he knows that his father is ill. There is something--a little--the matter with Sir William’s heart--not much, thank God; but we ought to spare him. Will you tell Paul?--but Alice, Alice, how could you be so careless, Mr. Fairfax has had no breakfast!” Lady Markham rose hastily, and drew a chair to the table, and turned to him, pointing to it, with a tremulous smile about her mouth, though the tears were standing in her eyes.