"What a lovely day it is for December!" he added, looking at the sparkling sunlight. "Very. It almost tempts me to go out." "I will take you tomorrow, Clara; I must go to Guild today." Mrs. Lake resumed her work with trembling fingers. "Penelope's watch is at Van Buren's. I promised faithfully to take it to her today." "Are there no watchmakers at Guild, that Mrs. Chester should send her watch to Katterley?" "I don't know. I brought it to him at her request a fortnight ago. Van Buren has a great name in his trade, you know." As he spoke he looked at his own watch; it was time to depart. "Shall you be home to dinner, Robert?" "No. But I shall to tea. I shall be in by the seven train. Good-bye, Clary." She raised her face with its crimson hectic colour, the result of emotion, to receive his farewell kiss. Its loveliness could but strike him. "How well you are getting to look, my darling," he said, tenderly. And it would no doubt have astonished Mr. Lake excessively could he have glanced back at his wife through the garden and the walls of the house as he went off, gaily whistling. Dropping her work on the floor, she fell into a storm of sobs in her utter self-abandonment. Miss Jupp came in, and so found her. "Clara! _Clara!_" Up she got: but to affect indifference was an impossibility. Mary Jupp, greatly shocked, took the sorrowful face in her sheltering arms. "Tell me what it is, Clara. Open your poor little heart to me, my dear. I am older than you by many years, and have had trouble myself. Where's your husband?" "Gone to Guild." "Oh," said Miss Jupp, shortly, who had her private opinion on many things. "Well, dear, he has got a nice day for it." Clara dried her eyes and stifled her sobs, and sat down to work again. "I am so stupid," she said, in a tone of apology. "Since my illness I don't feel strong; it makes me cry sometimes." Mary Jupp said no more, perhaps wisely. She took her things off and remained the day. And Mr. Lake got home, not by seven at night, but by the last train. Christmas approached, and Mrs. Lake got thinner and weaker. Still her husband suspected nothing amiss. She rose in the morning, went through her duties, such as they were, and had a bright colour. How was he, an unobservant man by nature and habit, to detect that it was all wrong? Had he suspected the truth, none would have been more anxiously troubled than he. It was in Clara Lake's nature to conceal what was amiss. With these reticent temperaments, a great grief touching the heart, a grief unto death, never can be spoken of. At the last, perhaps, when hours are numbered, but not always then. _He_ saw no signs of it: the low spirits, the nervous weakness were given way to when alone: never before him. Except that she had grown strangely still and quiet, he saw no alteration. She tried to be cheerful, and succeeded often.