Something in her voice and manner conveyed an unpleasant impression to both her hearers. Mrs. Charlton looked calmly surprised; Mrs. M'Diarmid looked distressed and rather angry. She wished she had been more cautious in telling of the Kilsyths before this lady, who did not know them, but who did know Dr. Wilmot. She felt that Mrs. Prendergast had put a meaning into what Mrs. Charlton had said, in which there was something at least indirectly slighting and derogatory to Madeleine; and the feeling made her hot and angry. Mrs. Charlton's suavity extricated them from the difficulty, which all felt, and one intended. "I. didn't quite understand the distinction," she said; "of course I understand it as you put it, but mine was merely a _façon de parler_. Dr. Wilmot's devotion to his profession has long been known, and he has succeeded as such devotion deserves." "Yes, indeed, Mrs. Charlton," said Henrietta heartily, and slipping with infinite ease into the peculiar manner which implies such intimacy with the person complimented as to make the praise almost a personal favour. "He has paid dearly indeed for his devotion, in the very instance you mention, Mrs. M'Diarmid." "How so?" said Mrs. M'Diarmid, off her guard, and rather huffily. "Ah, poor fellow! I can hardly bear to talk of it; but as I was his poor wife's closest friend, and with her when she died, I think it is only fair and just to him to tell the truth. Of course he had no notion of his wife's danger--no one could have had; but he never can or will forgive himself for his absence from her. You will not wonder that he should feel it dreadfully, and that his self-reproach is intolerable. 'I suppose,' he said, in one of his worst fits of grief, 'people will think I stayed at Kilsyth because Kilsyth is a great man; but you, Henrietta, you know me better. If she had been his dairymaid, instead of his daughter, it would have been all one to me.' And that was perfectly true; he knows no distinction in the pursuit of his duties. It was a terrible coincidence; but nothing can persuade him to regard it merely as a coincidence. It is fortunate your young friend is restored to health, Mrs. M'Diarmid." "Yes," said that lady, now pale, and looking the image of disconcerted distress. "Fortunate for her, of course; but also fortunate for him. You will exctuse my telling you, of course; nothing in the whole matter reflects in the least on the Kilsyth family--and I cannot forbear from saying what must exalt him still more in your esteem, but you cannot conceive how painful to him any reference to that fatal time is. He has wonderful self-control and firmness; but they were severely taxed, I assure you, when he had to make a call on Lady Muriel and Miss Kilsyth. I daresay he didn't show it." "Not in the least," said Mrs. M'Diarmid.