"That's true, poor girl. She's seemed very unwell, and I've often told her that only one doctor in the world could cure her malady--yourself." I smiled. The malady was, I knew too well, the grief of a disappointed love, and a perfect cure for that could only be accomplished by reconciliation. I was filled with regret that she was absent, for I longed there and then to take her to my breast and whisper into her ear my heart's outpourings. Yes; we men are very foolish in our impetuosity. "How long will she be away?" "Why?" inquired the smartly-dressed little woman, mischievously. "What can it matter to you?" "I have her welfare at heart, Mrs. Henniker," I answered seriously. "Then you have a curious way of showing your solicitude on her behalf," she said bluntly, smiling again. "Poor Ethelwynn has been pining day after day for a word from you; but you seldom, if ever, write, and when you do the coldness of your letters adds to her burden of grief. I knew always when she had received one by the traces of secret tears upon her cheeks. Forgive me for saying so, Doctor, but you men, either in order to test the strength of a woman's affection, or perhaps out of mere caprice, often try her patience until the strained thread snaps, and she who was a good and pure woman becomes reckless of everything--her name, her family pride, and even her own honour." Her words aroused my curiosity. "And you believe that Ethelwynn's patience is exhausted?" I asked, anxiously. Her eyes met mine, and I saw a mysterious expression in them. There is always something strange in the eyes of a pretty woman who is hiding a secret. "Well, Doctor," she answered, in a voice quite calm and deliberate, "you've already shown yourself so openly as being disinclined to further associate yourself publicly with poor Ethelwynn, because of the tragedy that befell the household, that you surely cannot complain if you find your place usurped by a new and more devoted lover." "What!" I cried, starting up, fiercely. "What is this you tell me? Ethelwynn has a lover?" "I have nothing whatever to do with her affairs, Doctor," said the tantalising woman, who affected all the foibles of the smarter set. "Now that you have forsaken her she is, of course, entirely mistress of her own actions." "But I haven't forsaken her!" I blurted forth. She only smiled superciliously, with the same mysterious look--an expression that I cannot define, but by which I knew that she had told me the crushing truth. Ethelwynn, believing that I had cast her aside, had allowed herself to be loved by another! Who was the man who had usurped my place? I deserved it all, without a doubt. You, reader, have already in your heart condemned me as being hard and indifferent towards the woman I once loved so truly and so well. But, in extenuation, I would ask you to recollect how grave were the suspicions against her--how every fact seemed to prove conclusively that her sister's husband had died by her hand.