"You have been to Dr. Marlow's. Margaret Jupp called, and she said she saw you turn into his house. You went to ask him whether I should get well. He told you No: for he knows I shall not. Was it not so?" She leaned a little forward to look at him. He suddenly clasped her to his breast with a gush of passionate tenderness, and his hot tears fell upon her face. "Oh, my darling! my darling!" "It must be," she softly whispered. "There is no appeal against it now." "Clara, if we are indeed to part, at least let perfect confidence be restored between us," he resumed, controlling his emotion with an effort. "What is the trouble that has been upon you?" "The trouble?" "Some of them are hinting at such a thing," he said, thinking of the doctor and of Miss Jupp: "I must know from you what it is." "Need you ask?" "Yes. For I cannot comprehend it. My darling, you must tell me." "If _she_ had never come between us, I do not think I should have been ill now." "I _cannot_ understand it," he repeated, a wailing sound in his emphasized words. "I have been foolish, thoughtless, wrong: though not to the extent you may possibly have imagined. But surely, taking it at its worst, that was not cause sufficient to bring you to death." "Your love left me for another. It seemed to me--it seemed to me--more than I could bear." Partly from the agitation the topic called up, partly that she was in hesitation how to frame her words, the pauses came. It was as if she would fain have said more. "My love? oh no. It was but a passing--" the word at his tongue's end was "fancy," but he substituted another--"folly. Clara! do not give me more than my share of blame; that will be heavy enough, Heaven knows. The old man says that the violent cold you caught at Guild, was the primary cause of decay: surely that cannot be charged upon me." She was silent a few moments--but, as he had said, there ought to be full confidence between them now--and she had been longing to tell him the whole unreserved truth; a longing that had grown into a sick yearning. "I will tell you now how I caught that cold. Do you remember the night?" "Not particularly." He was of a forgetful nature, and the events of the night had only been those of many another. "_Don't_ you remember it? When you were walking with--her--in the shrubbery in the raw twilight.--" Mr. Lake slightly shook his head in the pause she made. Twilight shrubbery walks were lying in numbers on his conscience. "She complained of cold, and you went to get her shawl out of the summer-house, leaving her seated on the bench in front of the green alcove. She sang a song to herself: I think I could repeat its words now. You brought the shawl and folded it lovingly around her, and kissed her afterwards, and called her--" In great astonishment he raised his wife's face to gaze into it. Where had she learnt that little episode? Had she dreamt it? He did not ask: he only stared at her.