Dolff had become silent, too. He came to no resolution, did nothing; fell back into a sort of sullen use and wont. But all the gayety which he had brought to the house in the days of the music-hall songs, all the attempts to please which had gratified his family during the time when Janet was the light of his eyes, had departed. He no longer spoke to Janet or cared for her society, though he would sit and gaze at her sometimes with the strange, stern expression which was altogether unlike Dolff. That this change should have been caused by Mr. Meredith’s accident was very bewildering to Mrs. Harwood, who, to tell the truth, soon became very weary of Meredith’s accident, and longed for his recovery chiefly as a means of getting him away. She did not for a moment believe that it was the effect of this which had changed Dolff. She believed that there must have been some quarrel with Janet--a premature proposal, perhaps, which the governess had rejected. A pretty thing indeed, Mrs. Harwood could not but reflect angrily, that a little governess should reject _her_ son! but yet no doubt the best thing that could have happened. This she felt was what it must have been, and she was glad of it, on the whole, though angry with Janet for having treated Dolff as she wished him to be treated. She would have been much more angry had Janet accepted his boyish proposal. As it was, all would no doubt turn out for the best; but she resented her boy’s changed looks, and could not but feel a grudge against Janet for causing them. To tell the truth, in the blank of that anxious week, when everybody was absorbed in Meredith’s condition, and the house was exceedingly dull and the days very long, Janet would not have objected to resume her friendly relations with Dolff. Her mind had got over the horror of the position, and somebody to talk to would have been pleasant to her. But Dolff was not disposed to listen to the voice of the charmer. He gazed at her for long times together without saying a word, but it was the stare of anger he directed upon her, and not that of love. In the meantime the police were coming and going about the house, bringing reports which Dolff had been deputed to hear and examine. Gussy herself for a day or two had insisted upon doing this herself, but presently, as she became more and more engrossed in the sick-room, it became impracticable. She had offered a reward for the ruffian who had so desperately assaulted her lover, and the list of men who had been taken up in succession, examined, and dismissed as having no evidence against them, seemed endless; though no one would seem to have been more likely than another. Dolff was made after a great struggle to take this duty upon him, and stolidly heard the stories which were brought to him, making no remark. Scarcely a day passed in which a detective did not appear with the account of a failure; all of which Dolff listened to in a grave, dazed manner, as if he but partially understood.