Mrs. Elrington saw with sorrow the coldness, and estrangement, that had crept between the two. Was that fair young wife so recently afflicted--so loving, so doubly bereaved at heart--to blame? or Robert? Mrs. Elrington loved Amy, and could not sit silently by without risking something to mend matters, so one day, when she and Robert were alone, she spoke. "I trust you are feeling stronger this morning, Mr. Vavasour?" "Thank you. Yes, I am I believe, mending apace." "I am glad of it, as I think your wife needs change, she is looking far from well; the sooner you take her home the better." "Bertie's death was a bitter trial; and she felt it deeply." "Bitter, indeed, it must have been, to have changed her so utterly. She is greatly altered since her marriage." Robert Vavasour sighed. "You are right," he replied. "I myself see the change, but without the power to remedy it now." "How so?" she asked. "You say altered since her marriage. It is true; for when Amy married she wilfully shut out from her heart all hopes of happiness." "You speak in riddles, Mr. Vavasour, which I am totally unable to comprehend." "I am a rich man, Mrs. Elrington, and that alone might have tempted many a girl, or led her to fancy she loved me." Mrs. Elrington drew up her head proudly. "But not Amy Neville," she replied, "no amount of wealth would have tempted her to marry a man she did not care for." "Care for," he repeated bitterly, "caring is not loving." Mrs. Elrington had arrived at the bottom of the mystery now; he fancied Amy did not love him! Amy who was devoting herself to him day after day, never weary of, but only happy when she was in his sick room, nursing and tending him as few wives would, treated so coldly, giving him all the loving worship of her young heart; while he refused to believe in it, but gloomily hugged the morbid fancy to his heart that she loved him not. Mrs. Elrington could have smiled at the delusion, if Amy's happiness had not been at stake; as it was she replied gravely, "You are mistaken, Mr. Vavasour, wilfully blind to what is openly apparent to all others who ever see you and your wife together. Why I verily believe Amy worships the very ground you stand on; but I fear no words of mine will convince you of the fact, while the indifference with which you are treating her is well-nigh breaking her heart." No, Robert Vavasour was not convinced. "She did not love me when she married me; her oath was false, she--" but no, his pride refused to allow him to tell of her love for another.