"I will tell you more about it when I have seen more of him," was the surgeon's answer. But his face and tone both assumed, or seemed to Karl to assume, an ominous shade as he gave it. CHAPTER XIX. Mrs. Cleeve at Fault. Mrs. Cleeve was at Foxwood. She had been staying in London with her sister, Lady Southal, and took the opportunity to come down to see her daughter. Lucy's appearance startled her. As is well known, we are slow to discern any personal change either for the better or the worse in those with whom we live in daily intercourse: it requires an absence of days or weeks, as the case may be, to perceive it in all its naked reality. Mrs. Cleeve saw what none around Lucy had seen--at least, to the extent--and it shocked and alarmed her. The face was a sad, drawn face; dark rims encircled the sweet brown eyes; the whole air and bearing were utterly spiritless. "What can be the matter with you, my dear?" questioned Mrs. Cleeve, seizing on the first opportunity that they were alone together. "The matter with me, mamma!" returned Lucy, making believe not to understand why the question should be put: though her face flushed to hectic. "Nothing is the matter with me." "There most certainly is, Lucy; with your health or with your mind. You could not be as you are, or look as you do unless there were." "I suffered a great deal from the heat," said poor Lucy. "My dear--you are suffering from something else; and I think you should enlighten me as to its nature. After that fever even you did not look as you are looking now." But not an iota of acknowledgment from her daughter could Mrs. Cleeve obtain. Lucy would not admit that aught was amiss in any way; at least, that she was conscious of it. Mrs. Cleeve next appealed to Miss Blake. But that young lady, absorbed by her own pursuits and interests; by the Reverend Mr. Cattacomb and the duties at St. Jerome's, had really not been observant of Lucy's fading face. She could be regardful enough in a contemptuous sort of way of Sir Karl's delinquencies, and of what she looked upon as his wife's blind infatuation; she did not omit to note the signs of trouble and care too evidently apparent in him, and which she set down as the result of an uneasy conscience: but she had failed to note them in Lucy. One cause of this perhaps was, that in her presence Lucy invariably put on an air of lightness, not to say gaiety: and Miss Blake was rarely at home, except at meals; if she did get an hour there she was up to the ears in silks and church embroidery. What with Matins and Vespers, and the other daily engagements at St. Jerome's; what with looking after St. Jerome's pastors; what with keeping the young fry in order, including Tom Pepp, and seeing to the spiritual interests of their mothers, Miss Blake had so much on her hands that it was no wonder she was not very observant of Lucy. "I do not think there is anything particular the matter with Lucy," was the answer she made to Mrs. Cleeve.