"The primary cause is of course that cold she caught at Guild. It laid hold of her system. Still, I think she might have rallied: many a time, since she came home, I have deemed her all but well again. You ought to know best, Master Robert, but to me it appears as though she had some grievance on her mind, and that it has been working mischief. I hope you have been a good husband to her, as Joan says to Hodge," added the doctor, turning from Mr. Lake to take a pinch of snuff. "Your wife has possessed one of those highly sensitive, rarely-refined temperaments, that, when joined to a fragile body, an unkind blow would shatter. I once told you this." He made no comment; he was battling with his pain. Dr. Marlow continued. "The body was a healthy body; there was no inherent disease, as I have always believed, and I cannot see why it should not have recovered; but the mind seemed to pull it back; two powers, one working against the other. Between them they have conquered, and will lay her low." "Do you call it consumption?" Mr. Lake jerked out. And really the words were jerked out, rather than fairly spoken. "Decidedly not. More of a decline: a waste of the system." "Those declines are cured sometimes." "Not often: when they fairly set in." "Oh, doctor," he cried, clasping the old man's hand, and giving vent to some of the anguish that was rending him, "try and save her! Save her for my sake! You don't know the cause I have to ask it." "I wish I could--for both your sakes. She is beyond earthly aid." They stood looking at each other. Dr. Marlow, willing if possible to soothe in a degree the blow, resumed. "I suppose I must, after all, have been mistaken in her constitution. When consumption showed itself in her brother, and he died of it, I watched her all the closer. But I could detect nothing wrong: though she was always one of those blossoms that a sharp wind would blow away. The disease was there, we must assume, and I failed to detect it." "You say--you said but now--that it is not consumption," returned Mr. Lake, speaking sharply in his pain. "Neither is it. But when unsoundness is inherent in the constitution it does not always show itself in the same form. Sometimes it comes out in one shape, sometimes in another." There was no more to be said; nothing further to be learnt. Mr. Lake returned home with his burden of knowledge, wondering how much of this dread fiat Clara suspected, how much not. The shades of evening were on the room when he entered it, imparting to it a semi-gloom, but the rays of the fire-light fell on his wife's wasted face. Stirring the coals into a bright blaze, he sat down by her chair, and took her hand. Her wasted fingers entwined themselves fondly with his. "I know where you have been, Robert. And I guess for what purpose." "Ah. You are wise, my little wife. I went out to get a breath of fresh air."