"It is a nervous attack," said Mrs. Chester. "Go and get some wine, Robert, or some brandy." He was going already, before she told him, and brought back both. Clara would take neither. Awfully vexed at having caused a scene, the mortification enabled her to throw off the symptoms of illness, except the shivering. Lady Ellis, with extreme bad taste, slipped her hand within Mr. Lake's arm as they stood watching her. He moved forward to speak, and so dropped it. "You must have caught cold, I fear, Clara. Had you not better take something warm and go to bed?" She lifted her eyes to his, and answered sharply--sharply for her. "I shall not go to bed. I am well now." "Colds are sooner caught than got rid of, Clara. If you have take one--" "If I have, it will be gone in the morning," came the sharp interruption. "Pray do not let me disturb your game." Contriving to repress the shivering by a strong effort of will, she took up her book again. They returned to the chess-table, Mrs. Chester went on with her embroidery, and so the night went on: Clara, outwardly calm, reading sedulously--inwardly shaking as though she had an ague-fit. Even to herself it was evident that she had caught a violent cold. "I shall send you a glass of white-wine whey," spoke Mrs. Chester, when Clara at length rose to go upstairs, declining to partake of the refreshments brought in. "And mind you lie in bed in the morning. There's no mistake about the cold." "How _could_ she have caught it?" exclaimed Lady Ellis, with a vast display of sympathy; and Clara bit her tongue to enforce silence, for she could scarcely forbear telling her. My lady, taking her unawares, gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Drink the whey quite hot, my dear Mrs. Lake." Clara, her mind full of Judas the false and _his_ kiss, went upstairs alone; she preferred to do so, she told them, and shut-herself in her own chamber. When Elizabeth appeared with the white-wine whey, and left it, she noticed that her mistress had not begun to undress. Neither had she when Mr. Lake came up, nearly an hour afterwards. They had lingered in the dining-room--he, Mrs. Chester, and Lady Ellis. He was very much surprised. She sat by the fire, wrapped in a shawl, with her feet on the fender. "Why, Clara, I thought you were in bed and asleep!" There was no answering remark. Mr. Lake, thinking her manner more and more strange, laid his hand kindly on her shoulder. "Clary, what ails you to-night?" She shrank away from his hand, and replied to his question by another. "Why is it that our house is not ready?" "That is just what I asked of the workmen today, lazy dogs!" "We can go back to it as it is. Some of the rooms are habitable. Will you do so?" "What in the world for?" he demanded. "We are very comfortable here, Clara; and, between ourselves, it is a help to Penelope." "We must go back. I cannot stay." "But why? Where's the motive?"