‘Yes, sir,’ answered the old man; ‘she’s seen a sight o’ trouble lately.’ Where’s her husband?’ A flush of shame spread itself over the old gamekeeper’s withered old face. ‘Ah, I see—family trouble. Guessed so. Been fretting.’ He bent down kindly over Bess. ‘Come, you must cheer up, Mrs. Smith,’ he said. ‘Get to the window—look out—read—work—do something.’ He rose to go. Marks went with him to the door. ‘Can’t you give her anything, sir?’ he said. ‘She’s changing dreadful. She’s breaking her heart.’ ‘My good sir,’ answered the doctor, ‘I don’t keep any plaister that can heal that. She doesn’t want medicine. She wants change and fresh air. Get her away from London—seaside—bracing air. Talk to her—keep her from thinking.’ That was Mr. Goff’s advice on the first day, but, just to please old Marks and to make a show for his fee, he sent a tonic for Bess to take. He called again and again, and each time he was more desirous that Bess should be got away. He told her father plainly what was the matter. Her great trouble, whatever it was, had completely shattered her strength, and there was a danger that if she brooded on it much more her mind might suffer. There was a look in her eyes that frightened him. One day Marks told the doctor their history. It was necessary he should know it, for Bess’s condition was becoming alarming. The terrible sentence pronounced on her husband, the thought of his awful fate, and the long, weary years of separation, had crushed her gentle, loving heart. It seemed as though the thread of her life had been suddenly snapped. She was like the sweet meadowland flower, which, crushed in its beauty by the heel of some passing hind, never lifts its head to the sun again, but slowly withers and dies. It was after one of his short visits that Mr. Goff put the case plainly to Marks. ‘Look here, my good fellow,’ he said; ‘I’m not coming here to rob you any more. Take her away from London at once. Get to the sea, and let her have the air as much as you can. If you can’t afford it, or won’t do it, the end isn’t far off.’ ‘You don’t think she will die?’ asked Marks, in an agonized tone, clutching the doctor’s arm. ‘If she’s got a good constitution she will not die. The mind will go before the body. It’s seaside or lunatic asylum—which you like.’ The doctor was quite right. A hundred little things bore out his opinion. Bess would sit for hours staring into vacancy and talking to herself. She did not cry. She sat with tearless, lacklustre eyes, repeating to herself the sad story of her later life. There was no emotion, no passionate outbreak, only the monotonous misery. Marks made up his mind to obey the doctor’s instructions at once.