"It was one of those dreadful fainting-fits, sir. But they could not get him out of it, and for some time thought he was really dead. Mrs. Grey was nearly beside herself, Ann said, and insisted on having a doctor. He is better now, sir," added Hewitt, "and I think there's no need for you to go over unless you particularly wish. I went strolling about the road, thinking I might hear or see something more, and when Ann Hopley came to the gate to answer a ring, she told me he was quite himself again but still in bed. It was the pain made him faint." "I cannot think what the pain is," murmured Karl. "Has the doctor been?" "I don't think he has yet, Sir Karl." Karl lifted his hat to rub his aching brow. He saw his wife sitting under one of the trees, and went forward to join her. The wan, weary look on her face, growing more wan, more weary, day by day, struck on him particularly in the waning light of the afternoon. "Do you do well to sit here, Lucy?" he asked, as he flung himself beside her, in utter weariness. "Why should I not sit here?" "I fancy the dew must be already rising." "It will not hurt me. And if it did--what would it matter?" The half reproaching, half indifferent accent in which it was uttered, served to try him. He knew what the words implied--that existence had, through him, become a burden to her. His nerves were strung already to their utmost tension; the trouble at his heart was pressing him sore. "Don't _you_, by your reproaches, make matters worse for me, Lucy, to-day. God knows that I have well-nigh more than I can bear." The strangely-painful tone, so full of unmistakable anguish, aroused her kindly nature. She turned to him with a sigh. "I wish I could make things better for both of us, Karl." "At least, you need not make them worse. What with one thing and another--" "Well?" she said, her voice softened, as he paused. "Nothing lies around me, Lucy, but perplexity and dread and pain. Look where I will, abroad or at home, there's not as much as a single ray of light to cheer my spirit, or the faintest reflection of it. You cannot wonder that I am sometimes tempted to wish I could leave the world behind me." "Have you had a pleasant day in town?" she asked, after a little while. "No, I have had an unsatisfactory and trying day in all ways. And I have come home to find more to try me: more dissatisfaction _here_, more dread abroad. 'Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards.' Some of us are destined to realise the truth in ourselves all too surely." He looked at his watch, got up, and walked indoors without another word. Lucy gazed after him with yearning eyes; eyes that seemed to have some of the perplexity he spoke of in their depths. There were moments when she failed to understand her husband's moods. This was one. CHAPTER XIV. Ill-omened Chances.