And consequently they were all unhappy. No one was more so than Charley. When the prospect of the happy evening with Norah had been so violently interrupted by his arrest, he had, among his other messages, sent word to the 'Cat and Whistle,' excusing his absence by a statement of the true cause. From that day to this of which we are now speaking he had seen neither Mrs. Davis nor her fair protégée. Nor were they better contented at the Cottage. Mrs. Woodward was harassed by different feelings and different fears, which together made her very unhappy. Her Katie was still ill; not ill indeed so that she was forced to keep her bed and receive daily visits from pernicious doctors, but, nevertheless, so ill as to make a mother very anxious. She had never been quite strong, quite herself, from the night of Mrs. Val's dance. The doctor who had attended her declared that her ducking in the river had given her cold: and that this, not having been duly checked, still hung about her. Then she had been taken to a physician in London, who poked her on the back and tapped her on the breast, listened to her lungs through a wooden pipe--such was the account which Katie gave herself when she returned home--and prescribed rum and milk and cod-liver oil, declaring, with an authoritative nod, that there was no organic disease--as yet. 'And what shall we do with her, doctor?' asked Mrs. Woodward. 'Go on with the rum and milk and cod-liver oil, you can't do better.' 'And the cough, doctor?' 'Why, if that doesn't go before the cold weather begins, you may as well take her to Torquay for the winter.' Oh! consumption, thou scourge of England's beauty! how many mothers, gasping with ill-suppressed fears, have listened to such words as these--have listened and then hoped; listened again and hoped again with fainter hopes; have listened again, and then hoped no more! But there was much on Mrs. Woodward's mind which she could not bring herself to tell to any doctor, but which still left in her breast an impression that she was perhaps keeping back the true cause of Katie's illness. Charley had not been at Hampton since his arrest, and it was manifest to all that Katie was therefore wretched. 'But why do you not ask him, mamma?' she had urged when her mother suggested that he stayed away because he did not like to show himself after what had occurred. 'What will he think of us? he that saved my life, mamma! Oh, mamma! you promised to forgive him. Do ask him. You know he will come if you ask him.'