“Oh, no, nothing about my health,” he said, with a short laugh, and went out, leaving Dr. Somers in a state of great discomfort, saying to himself that he had not meant it, and that he could not have imagined such a good-tempered careless fellow would have taken anything up so quickly. “It was nothing,” he said to himself. “I did not even imply that his circumstances were the same; in short, I did not say a word to offend--any one; nonsense! Who is Edgar Arden, I wonder, that one should study his feelings to such an extent? Good heavens, didn’t he insist upon being told?” Thus the Doctor excused and accused himself, and felt extremely uncomfortable, and at last went to bed, not feeling able to drown his remorse either in his seltzer water or his novel. “If Fielding had done anything as idiotic,” was his comment as he went upstairs, “or poor Letty--but I, that pretend to some sort of discretion!” His folly had at least this salutary effect. Meanwhile Edgar walked home very fast, as if some one were pursuing him. It was his thoughts which were pursuing him, rushing and driving him on. The avenue had never looked so stately in the moonlight, nor the woods so mysteriously sweet. All the soft perfumes of the night were in the air; the smell of the fresh earth and the dew, the fragrance that breathed out of here and there an old hawthorn, still covered with blossom, beginning to brown and fade in the daylight, but still sweet in the darkness. The front of the house lay in a great shadow made of its own roof and the big trees behind; but lights were twinkling about, as they ought to be in a house which expects its master. Was it possible that Arthur Arden could have turned him out, could have replaced him there? Could it be that Clare knew such a thing was possible? “Something about his mother.” Edgar did not himself realise what horror it was which had thus breathed across him. What could it be about his mother? Could there be anything about her which gave to any man the right of a possible insinuation? He did not remember her, and had not even a portrait of her, but was like her, people said. And therefore his father had hated him. Edgar’s brain burned as this strange thought whirled and fluctuated about him; he was its victim, he did not entertain it voluntarily. His father hated him because he was like her; but yet, was not she the mother, too, of the beloved Clare? CHAPTER XVIII.