Ricardo felt as if he were prepared to pay any price within his means, sooner than part with Hannah Stubbs, before she had fulfilled his dearest wishes, by bringing his dead wife back to him. Better a crust of dry bread and a glass of water, he thought, than to lose the knowledge which seemed just within his grasp. To know Leonora pure and good, and that after years of purgatory he might be reunited to a faithful wife--or to have the stain of innocent blood lifted from his brow--the mark of Cain wiped out for ever! One of these two things it must be, and he thirsted to ascertain which! He was so self-absorbed and _distrait_, that even Lady Alethea perceived the difference in her tutor and asked him kindly if he were ill. “O! nothing! nothing! only a slight headache, dear Lady Alethea,” he murmured, as he made a violent effort to collect his wandering thoughts, and fix them on the Italian grammar. On his way home that evening, he called for Karl Steinberg, and asked him to walk back with him, whilst he confided his fears and asked what steps they should take, to prevent such a calamity as the loss of Hannah’s services. “It merely means,” replied the Doctor, “more money. Mrs. Battleby has perceived the satisfaction we feel in Hannah’s society, and judges wisely, that it does not all proceed from giving her medicine! My friend! these women are too sharp for us! Their brains are very light, but they make up for that deficiency by the cunning of the lower animals. After all, when you come to consider it, why should we interest ourselves because a maid-of-all-work is anæmic, hysterical? Had we not better make a clean breast of it at once, and tell the good woman what we do with Hannah during her evenings with us?” “Not for the world,” cried the Professor, hastily, “the more ignorant the mind, the more opposed it is to anything it cannot understand! We should not only lose Mrs. Battleby’s patronage (if I may call her concession by such a name), but Hannah’s also. For she would, of course, tell the girl everything, and she would refuse to sit with us any more.” “I see!” replied Steinberg, thoughtfully, “then my advice is to take no notice whatever of Mrs. Battleby’s hints, which were probably only thrown out in order to make you betray yourself. She is curious, my dear friend--all women are--she fancies there must be something more going on than the curative process, and thought to bully you into telling her what it is. Keep your own counsel! She may suspect, but so long as the door of your inner chamber is kept locked, she cannot find out!” “How I wish I was rich enough to hire this girl as my own servant,” observed Ricardo, “and defy Mrs. Battleby, or leave her lodgings altogether! Then I would take a little house of my own, and people might say what they liked!”