She did not reply; she stood still and pale within the embrace of his arm, and remained there all the remainder of the evening, until Rosalia had finished her songs. As the girl shut down the lid of the instrument, arose and turned towards them, she noticed Hagar, and starting, exclaimed, “Why, Hagar! how frightfully pale you are! Are you ill?” “No”—began Hagar, but Raymond, by a tight pressure of her arm, arrested her speech, and answered for her. “_Yes_—she is indisposed, but a night’s rest will restore her; go to your chamber, love,” and taking a lamp from a side-table he gave it to her, and opening the door, held it for her to pass out. She went. Rosalia, springing up at the same moment, exclaimed, “Let me go with you to your room, dear Hagar, if you are not well!” “_No!_ I am going with her. Good-night, dear Rosalia,” said Raymond, suddenly starting up to follow his wife. Rosalia looked distressed, perplexed, and finally paced slowly and thoughtfully away to the chamber next the nursery, where she slept. “Hagar,” said Raymond, as soon as he reached her chamber. “Well!” “How did you spend the day after I left the house this morning?” “I kept my room with a headache, with a _real_ headache, the first I ever had in my life.” “Is that an intended reproach?” “No, I only mentioned it as a fact.” “Where was your cousin?” “She went to town shopping with Mrs. Collins in the forenoon, and drove out with the children in the afternoon.” “Then she was not with you all day?” “No.” “Had no opportunity of questioning you about your ill looks?” “No; I said I had the headache, and so I really had; and when I kept my room she understood it to be from a slight indisposition.” “But now her suspicions are excited—she sees that your misery rises from a deeper source than a slight physical indisposition—take care, Hagar, that she does not see the _cause_. She sees that there is trouble between us; be sure that you do not betray the reason, or, rather, the _un_reason of this trouble, my lady.” Hagar did not reply to this covert threat. She was not herself; a heaviness, a stupor, weighed down her spirit; a reaction of the excitement of her ardent temperament, an ebb in the high tide of her life, left her weak and powerless. She lay there upon the lounge in her dressing-room; it was yet too early to think of retiring, and Raymond, taking advantage of the temporary torpor of her faculties, perhaps mistaking her apathy for utter submission, sat down by her side, and said, “Hagar, I am very tired of this, very thoroughly worn out with this; we have been beating the air long enough, let us come to something substantial. I will probe this wound of yours—extract the bullet that is festering in your bosom; tell me now, in so many words, of what have you to complain?” “I do not complain.” “You _do_; not in words, certainly, but in manner; now what is it all about—why are you growing more sullen, ugly, and repulsive every day?”