The autumn twilight had fallen upon the garden, wrapping it in its dim grey folds, the heavy mists were beginning to rise from the damp earth, and the whole aspect outside was dreary and chilly. But when Alice entered the little library she found John Claxton standing at the window, with his head lying against the pane, and apparently rapt in the contemplation of the cheerless landscape. "John," she said, creeping close to him, and laying her hand upon his shoulder, "John." "Yes, dear," he replied, passing his arm round her and drawing her closely to him. "You wondered what had become of me; you came to reproach me for leaving you so long to yourself?" "No, John, not that," said Alice; "there is noting in the wide world for which I have to reproach you; there has been nothing since you first made me mistress of your house." "And of my heart, Alice; don't forget that," said her husband, tenderly; "of my heart." "And of your heart," she repeated. "But when you gave me that position you expected me to take with it its responsibilities as well as its happiness, did you not? You did not bring me here to be merely a toy or a plaything--no,--I don't mean that exactly; I mean not merely to be something for your petting and your amusement--you meant me to be your wife, John; to share with you your troubles and anxieties, and to have a voice of my own, a very little one, in the regulation of all things in which you were concerned?" "Certainly, Alice," said her husband; "have I not shown this?" "Always before, John, always up to within the last few days. And if you are not doing so now, it is, I know, from no lack of love, but rather out of care and thoughtfulness for me." "Why, Alice," said John, with a struggle to revive his old playful manner, "what is the matter with you? How grave the little woman is to-night." "Yes, John; I am grave, because I know you are ill, and that you are striving to hide it from me lest I should be alarmed. That is not the way it should be, John; you know we swore to be loyal to each other in sickness as well as in health, and it would be my pride as well as my duty to take up my place by you in sickness and be your nurse." "I want no nurse, little woman," he said, bending tenderly over her. "As I told you this morning, I am quite well only a little--" And then his brain reeled, and his legs tottered beneath him, and had he not caught hold of the chair standing at his elbow, he would have fallen to the ground. "You are ill, John; there is the proof," Alice cried, after he had seated himself and thrown himself heavily back in the chair. She knelt by his side, bathing his forehead with eau-de-cologne. "You are ill, and must be attended to at once. Now listen; do you understand me?" A feeble pressure of her hand intimated assent.