‘My practice is not of a kind that will bear being trifled with,’ he said when he had thanked Mr. Clare for his proffered hospitality. ‘The few remunerative patients I have would be quick to take offence if they fancied I neglected them.’ ‘But you give yourself a holiday sometimes, I suppose?’ said Mrs. Clare, whose large maternal heart had a kindly feeling for all young men, simply because her son belonged to that section of society. ‘You go to stay with your relations now and then, don’t you?’ ‘No, my dear Mrs. Clare, I do not; and for the best of all reasons--I have no relations. I am the last twig of a withered tree.’ ‘How sad!’ replied the Vicar’s wife. Celia echoed the sigh, and looked compassionately at the surgeon, and compassion in Celia’s blue eyes was a sentiment no man could afford to despise. ‘If you will let me come again some day, when I have made a little progress in my profession, you will be giving me something pleasant to look forward to,’ said Gerard. ‘My dear fellow, we shall always be glad to see you,’ the Vicar answered heartily. ‘It strikes me you are the kind of friend my son wants.’ CHAPTER XXXI. WHY DON’T YOU TRUST ME? That winter Sabbath was a dreary day for John Treverton. He walked home almost in silence, Laura wondering at his thoughtfulness, and speculating anxiously upon the possible reasons for this sudden change in his mood. Had this friend of the Clares brought him bad news? Yet how could that be? Must it not rather be that this meeting with an old acquaintance had recalled some painful period in that past life of which she knew so little? ‘That is my misfortune,’ she thought. ‘I am only half a wife while I am ignorant of all his old sorrows.’ She did not disturb her husband by questions of any kind, but walked quietly by his side through the wintry shrubberies, where the holly berries were gleaming in the mid-day sun, and the fearless robins fluttered from hawthorn to laurel. ‘I won’t come in to luncheon, dear,’ said John when they came to the hall door. ‘I feel a little dull and headachy, and I think it might do me good to lie down for an hour or two.’ ‘Shall I come and read you to sleep, Jack?’ ‘No, dear, I shall be better alone.’ ‘Oh, Jack, why are you not frank with me?’ exclaimed his wife piteously. ‘I know there is something on your mind. Why don’t you trust me?’ ‘Not yet, dear. You will know everything that can be known about me very soon, I dare say. But we need not anticipate the revelation. It will not be too pleasant for either of us.’ ‘Do you think that anything I can ever learn about you will change me?’ she asked, with her hand upon his arm, looking up at him intently. ‘Have I not trusted you, and loved you, blindly?’ ‘Yes, dearest, blindly. But how can I tell how you may feel when your eyes are opened?’ She looked at him for some moments in silence, trying to read his face; and then, with most pathetic earnestness, she said:--