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.
"You must see how ill she looks, Theresa."
"She is not ill. At least, that I know of. She eats her dinner, and
dresses, and goes out, and has company at home. I really had not
observed that she was looking ill."
"She talks of the heat," continued Mrs. Cleeve; "but that is all
nonsense. Extreme heat may make a person thin, but it cannot make them
sad and spiritless."
"Lucy is neither sad nor spiritless--that I have noticed."
"Perhaps you have not noticed, Theresa. You have so many out-of-door
pursuits, you know. I suppose," continued Mrs. Cleeve, with some
hesitation, and lowering her voice to a confidential tone as she put
the question, "I suppose there is nothing wrong between her and her
husband?"
"Wrong in what way, do you mean?" rejoined Miss Blake.
"Any misunderstanding or unpleasantness."
"I should say _not_," returned Miss Blake, with some acrimony. "It is
rather the other way. Lucy is blindly, absurdly infatuated with Sir
Karl. If he boxed her on the one ear, she would offer him the other."
"It cannot be that, then," sighed Mrs. Cleeve. "I only thought of it
because there was nothing else I could think of. For I cannot help
fancying, Theresa, that the malady is on her spirits, more than on her
health. I--I wonder whether that ague-fever left unsuspected
consequences behind it that are developing themselves now?"
Theresa, her attention given to the employment in her hand--a cross
she was working in gold thread to adorn some part or other of Mr.
Cattacomb's canonicals--a great deal more than it was given to the
conversation, allowed the doubt to pass undiscussed. Mrs. Cleeve had
always been accustomed to worry herself over Lucy: Theresa supposed it
was the habit of mothers to do so, who had only one daughter. So the
subject of Lucy's looks dropped for the time.
"What is that for?" resumed Mrs. Cleeve, directing her attention to
the small gold cords.
"This? Oh, a little ornament I am making. Please don't touch it, Mrs.
Cleeve, or you will entangle the threads."
Thus rebuked, Mrs. Cleeve sat for some moments in silence, inhaling
the fresh air through the open window, and the perfume of the late
flowers. The mignonette, in its large clusters, seemed as though it
intended to bloom on until winter.
"Theresa, how much longer do you intend to remain here?" she suddenly
asked. "Your stay has been a very long one."
Theresa was aware of that. She was slightly suspicious that Sir Karl
and his wife had begun to think the same thing, though in their
courtesy they were not likely to let it appear. In truth the matter
was causing her some little reflection: for she would willingly have
made the Court her permanent home. While Mr. Cattacomb remained at St.
Jerome's, _she_ should remain. It might have been somewhat of a
mistake to institute St. Jerome's, and to bring Mr. Cattacomb to it:
Miss Blake could recognise it now: but as that step had been taken,
she could only abide by it.
"I am not likely to leave at present," she replied. "It would be very
dull for Lucy to be here without me. As the winter weather comes on,
my out-door duties will be somewhat curtailed, and I shall be able to
give her more of my time. Lucy would be lost by herself, Mrs. Cleeve.
She was always rather given to moping."
Yes. There was no doubt Lucy did "mope." Mrs. Cleeve sighed deeply. A
cloud lay on Foxwood Court, and she could not trace out its source.
The cloud, she thought, lay on Sir Karl as well as on Lucy. That is,
his sadness, his weary face, and his evident preoccupation were quite
as visible to Mrs. Cleeve as were her daughter's. But for Theresa's
emphatic assurance to the contrary, she might still have doubted
whether the cloud did not lie between _them_. She was a single-minded,
kind-hearted, simple-natured lady, not given to think ill, or to look
out for it: but in this case she did try to observe and notice. She
could not help seeing how seldom Karl and his wife were together. Karl
would drive Lucy out occasionally; but as a rule they saw but little
of him. He was generally present at meals, and always sociable and
kind, and he would come into the drawing-room when visitors called, if
at home; spending his other time chiefly in his own room, and in
walking out alone. Late in the evenings he would usually be absent:
Mrs. Cleeve noticed that. She had seen him walk across the lawn in the
gloom to one of the little gates; she had seen him come in again after
an hour or two's interval; and she wondered where he went to.
The truth was, Karl was obliged to go to the Maze more frequently
than he used to go, or than was at all prudent. Mr. Moore had
not yet pronounced the fatal fiat on Sir Adam that Dr. Cavendish
had--doubtfully--imparted to Mr. Detective Tatton; but he concealed
from none of them that the case was one of extreme gravity; ay, and of
danger. That Sir Adam grew more attenuated might be seen almost daily;
he himself assumed that he had but a short span left of life; and he
would not allow Karl to be for one single evening absent. Sometimes in
the day Karl also went there. The conviction that Adam would not be
long among them lay on every heart more or less: and it will be
readily understood that Karl should sacrifice somewhat of caution to
be with him while he might.
"Karlo, brother mine, you'll come over to-morrow morning?" Sir Adam
would say, when their hands met for the evening farewell--and he would
keep the hand until the answer should be given.
"If I can, Adam."
"That won't do. You must. Promise."
"I will, then. I will, if I can do it with safety."
And of course he had to go. Under other and happier circumstances, he
would never have quitted the invalid night or day.
The lack of what Karl considered "safety," as he spoke it in his
answer, would have consisted in the highway before the Maze gates
being peopled; in his being seen to enter. It was so very unfrequented
a road that not a soul would pass up or down for a quarter of an hour
together; nay, for half one; and, as a rule, Karl was safe. But he
exercised his precaution always. He would saunter towards the gate, as
though merely taking a stroll on the shady side path; and then, the
coast being clear, ring--for by day-time he never used his own key.
His ears and eyes alike on the alert; he, if by mal-chance some
solitary passenger should appear, would saunter over to Mr. Smith and
talk to him: and then slip in when the intruder should have passed,
Ann Hopley having the door by that time ready to open. Karl would use
the same precaution coming out: and hitherto had escaped observation.
It was not always to be so.
The time passed on: Sir Adam fluctuating, some days fearfully ill,
some days feeling well and hearty; and Mrs. Cleeve continuing at
Foxwood, for she could not bear to leave Lucy.
Karl went across one morning soon after breakfast. His brother had
been very ill indeed the evening before: so ill that Karl had brought
most unpleasant thoughts away with him. He was ringing at the gate
when it suddenly opened; Ann Hopley was letting out Mr. Moore.
So far as _his_ visits went, there had been no trouble. Foxwood had
taken care to inform itself as to what patient at the Maze it was that
Mr. Moore was again in regular attendance upon, and found it to be
Hopley the gardener. The old man had caught an attack of rheumatic
fever, or some other affection connected with age and knee
joints--said the Miss Moores to the rest of the fair flock going to
and from St. Jerome's. There was neither interest nor romance
attaching to the poor old man; so the doctor was at liberty to pass in
and out at will without the slightest thought being given to it. In
the doctor's day-book the patient, was entered as "James Hopley, Mrs.
Grey's servant" The doctor's assistant, a fashionable young man from
London, who wore an eye-glass stuck in his eye, could have the
pleasure of reading it ten times a day if he chose.
"How is he?" asked Karl of Mr. Moore.
"Oh, better this morning--as I expected he would be," was the
surgeon's answer. "But I have ordered him to lie in bed for the day.
This time I think he will obey me, for he feels uncommonly weak."
"Every fresh attack makes him weaker," observed Karl.
"Why of course it does: it must do so. I don't half like the
responsibility that lies on me," continued the doctor. "We ought to
have another opinion."
"How can it be had?" remonstrated Karl.
"There it is--how? I wish he could be in London under the constant
care of one of its practised men."
"We wish this, and wish the other, Mr. Moore," said Karl, sadly, "and
you know how impossible it is for us to do more than we are doing.
Answer me truly--for I think you can answer. Would there be a fair
chance of his recovery if we had other advice than yours? Would there
be any better chance of it?"
"Honestly speaking I do not think there would. I believe I am doing
for him all that can be done."
Ann Hopley drew the gate open again, and the doctor went out. Karl
passed on through the labyrinth.
Sir Adam liked to use his own will in all respects, and it was the
first time he had made even a semblance of obeying Mr. Moore's orders
of taking rest by daytime. He looked very ill. The once handsome face
seemed shrunk to nothing; the short hair was almost white; the
grey-blue eyes, beautiful as Karl's, had a strangely wistful, patient
look in them.
"I thought you would be here, Karlo. I have wanted you ever since
daylight."
"Are you feeling better, Adam? Free from pain?"
"Much better. Quite free from it."
"Moore has been saying he wishes we could get you to London, that you
might have more skilled advice."
"What nonsense!" cried Adam. "As if any advice could really avail me!
He knows it would not. Did it avail my father, Karl?"
Karl remained silent. There was no answer he could make.
"Sit down, old fellow, and tell me all the news. Got a paper with
you?"
"The papers have not come yet," replied Karl, as he drew a chair to
the bedside.
"Slow coaches, people are in this world! I shall get up presently."
"No, Adam, not to-day. Moore says you must not."
"Good old man! he is slow too. But he won't keep me in bed, Karl, when
I choose to quit it. Why should I not get up?" continued Sir Adam, his
voice taking a tone of its old defiance. "I am the best judge of my
own strength. If I lay here for a month of Sundays, Karl, it would not
add a day to my life."
Perhaps that was true. At any rate, Adam was one whom it was of no use
to urge one way or the other.
"What's the old adage, Karlo?--'a short life and a merry one?' Mine
has not been very merry of late, has it?"
"I wish we could get you well, Adam."
"Do you? We are told, you know, that all things as they fall, are for
the best. The world would say, I expect, that this is. I wonder
sometimes, though, how soon or how late the enemy would have shown
itself, had my life continued smooth as yours is."
Smooth as yours is! The unconscious words brought a pang to Karl's
heart; they sounded so like mockery. Heaven alone knew the distress
and turbulence of his.
"I got Moore into a cosy chat the other day," resumed Sir Adam: "the
wife was safe away, trimming the plants in the greenhouse--Rose is
nearly as good a gardener as I am, Karl."
"I know she is fond of gardening."
"Ay, and has been amidst it for years, you see. Well--I led Moore on,
saying this, and asking the other, and he opened his mind a bit. The
disease was in me always, he thinks, Karl, and must have come out,
sooner or later. It was only a question of time. I have said so myself
of late. But I did not look to follow the little olive branch quite so
quickly."
"We may keep you here a long while yet, Adam. It is still possible, I
hope, we may keep you for good. Moore has not said to the contrary."
"You think he knows it, though?"
Karl was really not sure. His own opinion was this--that Adam had less
chance of getting well where he was than he would have had under those
of the London faculty, whose specialty embraced that class of disease.
"Shall you put on mourning for me, old fellow? It will be a risk,
won't it? I shan't care to be held up to the world as Adam Andinnian,
dead, any more than I do, alive. You'll not care to say, either, 'This
black coat is worn for that brother of mine: the mauvais sujet who set
the world all agog with his scandal.'"
What kind of a mood was Sir Adam in this morning? Karl's grave eyes
questioned it. One of real, light, careless mockery?--or was it an
underlying current of sadness and regret making itself too uneasily
felt in his heart?
"Don't, Adam. It jars on every chord and pulse. You and I have cause
to be at least more sober than other men."
"What have I said?" cried Sir Adam, half laughing. "That you may have
to put on mourning for me. It is in the nature of things that the
elder should go before the younger. You look well in black, too, Karl;
men with such faces as yours always do."
"I hope it will be a long while before I have to wear it," sighed
Karl, perceiving how hopeless it was to change his brother's humour.
"I'd bet Foxwood with you that it will be before Christmas."
"Adam, is it right to speak in this way?"
"Is it particularly wrong?"
"Why do you do it?"
"Need of change, I suppose. I have had a solemn night of it, old
fellow: and I hardly know yet whether I was asleep or awake. It was
somewhat of both, I expect: but I thought I was amidst the angels. I
can see them now as they looked; a whole crowd of them gathered about
my bed. And, Karlo, when a man begins to dream of angels, and not to
be able to decide afterwards whether it be a dream or a shadowed
reality, it is a pretty sure sign, I take it, that no great time will
elapse before he is with them."
Before Karl left, Adam had talked himself into a doze. With his worn
and haggard face turned to the wall, he slept as peacefully as a
child. Karl stole away, and went into the greenhouse. Rose was there
amid the plants; the sunlight shining on her beautiful hair turned it
into threads of gold. She lifted her white face, with its sad
expression.
"I knew you were with him, Karl, so I did not come in. Don't you think
he looks very, very ill this morning."
"Yes, he certainly does. He is asleep now."
"Asleep! In the daytime!"
"He had a bad night, I fancy."
"Do you think there's hope, Karl?" she piteously asked--almost as if
all hope had left herself.
"I don't know, Rose. Mr. Moore has not told me there is none."
"Perhaps it is that he will not say," she rejoined, resting her elbow
on the green steps amid the plants, and her cheek on her hand. "I seem
to see it, Karl; to see what is coming. Indeed, you might tell me the
truth. I shall not feel it quite so much as I should had our
circumstances been happier."
"I have told you as far as I know, Rose."
"There's my little baby gone: there's my husband going: all my
treasures will be in the better world. I shall have nothing to do but
live on for, and look forward to, the time when I may go to them. Six
months ago, Karl, had I known Adam must die, I think the grief would
have killed me. But the apprehension we have undergone the last few
weeks--Adam's dread, and my awful fear for him--has gone a great way
to reconcile me. I see--and I think he sees--that Death would not be
the worst calamity. Better for him to be at rest than live on in that
frightful peril night and day; each moment as it passes one of living
agony, lest the next should bring the warders of Portland Island to
retake him. No wonder it is wearing him out."
Karl went away echoing the last sentence; every word she had spoken
leaving its echo of pain on his heart. No: it was no wonder that fatal
illness had seized on Adam Andinnian before its time.
Well, on this day Karl was not to escape unnoticed so easily. Ann
Hopley unlocked the gate, and then both of them stood listening
according to custom. Not a sound broke the stillness, save the furious
chirping somewhere of two quarrelsome sparrows: not a step could be
heard awaking the echoes or the ground. Ann Hopley drew back the half
of the gate, and Karl went forth.
Went forth to find himself, so to say, in the very arms of Mrs. Cleeve
and Miss Blake. They were standing quite still (which fact accounted
for their footsteps not being heard) gazing at these same two
fighting birds in the hedge. What with Karl's naturally nervous
organization, and what with the dread secret he had just left, every
drop of blood went out of his face. But he did not lose his presence
of mind.
"Looking on at a fight, Mrs. Cleeve!" he exclaimed in a light tone.
"Birds have their hasty passions as well as men, you see. You wicked
combatants! Let one another's heads alone. They'll not look any the
better without feathers."
One of the noisy birds, as if in obedience, flew away to a distant
tree; the other followed it. Karl stayed talking for a minute with the
ladies; heard that they had come out for a little walk; and then he
went on to his home. Mrs. Cleeve, as she continued her way, glanced
inquisitively at the iron gate in passing.
"Do the same people live there still, Theresa? Let me see--a Mrs.
Grey, was it not?"
"Oh yes, she lives there," slightingly returned Miss Blake. "She had a
baby at the close of summer, but it died."
"A baby! Why, she was a young widow? Stay--no--what was it?--Oh, her
husband was abroad. Yes, I remember now. Has he come home yet?"
"As much as he ever will come, I expect," observed Miss Blake. "The
girl has just as much a husband as I have, Mrs. Cleeve."
"Why, what is it that you would imply?" cried Mrs. Cleeve, struck with
the words and the tone.
"I once, quite accidentally, heard her sing, 'When lovely woman stoops
to folly?' You know the song? It was, in one sense of the word, sung
in character."
"Oh, dear!" cried Mrs. Cleeve! "But--but what does Sir Karl do there?"
"Sir Karl? Oh--he is her landlord."
The taunting kind of way in which Miss Blake said it, turned Mrs.
Cleeve's delicate cheeks to a rosy red. All kinds of unpleasant
thoughts began crowding into her mind.
"Theresa, what do you mean?" she asked, her voice dropping with its
own dread. "_Have_ you any meaning?"
And the chances were--taking into consideration the love of gossip and
of scandal so inherent in woman--that Theresa Blake would there and
then have disclosed that she had a meaning, and what the meaning was:
but in that self-same moment she happened to turn her eyes on Mr.
Smith, the agent. He was leaning over his garden gate, playing with a
bunch of late roses; and he gravely lifted his hat to Miss Blake as
she looked at him.
There was something in the grave look, or in the sight of the man
himself, or in the roses, telling of summer, that recalled most
vividly to Miss Blake's mind the private conversation she had once
held with Mr. Smith, and the caution he had given her. At any rate,
Jane Shore and the lighted taper, and the white sheet, and all the
other accessories, rose up before her mental vision as plainly as one
can see into a mirror. The penance looked no more palatable to Miss
Blake now than it had then. As well keep clear of such risks, great
and small. She changed her tone.
"I really don't know anything about the young woman, Mrs. Cleeve. Pray
do not take up a mistaken notion. She is Sir Karl's tenant; that is
all."
"But if she is not--quite--quite circumspect in her conduct, it must
be rather unpleasant to have her close to the Court," said Mrs.
Cleeve.
"Oh, she lives a perfectly retired life."
"She is very pretty, I think?"
"Beautiful as an angel."
Nothing more passed. The two sparrows came flying to a proximate tree,
and began fighting again. But an uneasy impression was left on Mrs.
Cleeve's mind; for she could not forget the strangely-significant tone
in which Miss Blake had spoken, and its too sudden change to cautious
indifference.
Karl was pacing one of the broad paths that evening, in his grounds,
when he found himself joined by Mrs. Cleeve. She had thrown a warm
shawl over her grey silk evening dress. He gave her his arm. The
shadows were deepening: the evening star was already twinkling in the
clear sky.
"I want to tell you of a little plan I have formed, Sir Karl, and get
your assent to it. It cannot have escaped your notice that Lucy is
looking very ill."
"I have seen it for some time," he answered.
"And I should have spoken to you of it before," resumed Mrs. Cleeve,
"only that Lucy herself seems so much annoyed when I allude to it,
telling me that nothing is the matter with her, and begging me not to
take up fancies. Are you aware of anything being wrong with her
general health?"
"No, I am not: there is nothing wrong with it that I know of,"
returned Karl, unpleasantly conscious that he was not likely to know
more about his wife's general health than any other of the Court's
inmates.
"Well, what I wish to do is this: to take Lucy to town with me when I
leave, and let some physician see her."
"But you are not leaving us yet?"
"Not just yet, perhaps; but when I do go. In fact, I really must take
her. I could not be easy to go back home and leave Lucy looking as she
is, without having some good medical opinion. Have you any objection
to this?"
"Not the slightest. I do not fancy any physician could do much good to
Lucy--she has certainly, as I believe, no specific disease--but I
think change of air and scene may be of much benefit to her. I am glad
that she should go."
"Well, now that I have your permission, Sir Karl, I shall know how to
act. Lucy has been telling me that she does not need a physician, and
will not see one; and that she does not care to go to London. But that
we have never had consumption in our family, I should fear it for
Lucy."
Karl was silent. That Lucy had taken the unfortunate secret to heart
in a strange manner, and that it was telling upon her most
unaccountably, he knew.
"It is rather ungrateful of her to say she does not care to go to
London, considering that she has never stayed with her aunt since that
time of illness at Winchester," resumed Mrs. Cleeve. "Though, indeed,
Lucy seems to have no energy left, and her cheerfulness appears to me
more sham than reality. Lady Southal is anxious for her to go up with
me."
"Are you intending to stay again with Lady Southal yourself?"
"I shall now; as long as Lucy does. And, armed with your authority, I
shall insist on Lucy's going up with me. I wish you would come too,
Sir Karl: my sister would be so glad to see you."
With his unfortunate brother dying at the Maze, it was not possible
for Karl to quit Foxwood. But he was exceedingly glad that Lucy should
be absent for a time. It would leave him more at liberty. At least, in
spirit. With Lucy's intense contempt and hatred for the Maze and its
troubles, Karl never went there but he was conscious of feeling
something like a school-boy, who is in mischief away from home.
"I cannot leave home just now," said Karl. "But you must tell Lady
Southal that I shall be most happy to take a future opportunity of
paying her a visit."
"Are you busy, that you cannot leave?"
"My Uncle Joseph's papers are not arranged yet; I am anxious to get on
with them," he said, by way of excuse. And in truth that, so far, was
so. In his mind's terrible distress the sorting of the papers had been
much neglected.
"At least, you will come to town to fetch Lucy home."
"Of course I will."
The affair decided, they strolled the whole length of the walk in
silence. Karl's thoughts were no doubt busy: Mrs. Cleeve was wishing
to say something else, and did not quite know how to begin.
"What a nice evening it is!" cried Karl. "How fair the weather
continues to be!"
"Yes. But the hedges are showing signs of winter. I noticed it
particularly when I was out with Theresa this morning. That was the
Maze, I think, that we saw you coming out of."
Karl assented. There was no help for it.
"Does the young lady live there alone still?"
"She has her servants with her."
"But not her husband."
"Mr. Grey, it is understood, spends a good deal of his time in
travelling."
"Sir Karl, I think I must ask you plainly. I have been wanting to ask
you," she said, taking courage. "Is there any reason for supposing
that this lady is not--is not quite what she ought to be?"
"Why, what do you mean?" returned Karl, standing still in his
surprise. "Are you speaking of Mrs. Grey?"
"It is almost impossible to avoid attaching some doubt to a young and
lovely woman, when she lives so unaccountably secluded a life,"
returned Mrs. Cleeve, calling up the most plausible excuse she could
for her suspicions.
"The very fact of her keeping herself so secluded ought to absolve
Mrs. Grey from it," said Karl warmly. "She is a good and honourable
lady."
"You feel sure of that?"
"I am sure of it. I know it. Believe me, dear Mrs. Cleeve, that Lucy
herself is not more pure and innocent than that pure lady is," he
added, taking Mrs. Cleeve's hands in his earnestness, in his anxiety
to convince her. "She has had great trouble to try her; she may be
said to live in trouble: but heaven knows how good she is, and how
persistently she strives to be resigned, and endure."
Mrs. Cleeve kept the sensitive hands in hers; she saw how worthy of
trust he was in his earnestness; and every doubt went out of her.
"I am very glad to hear it. I hope she and you will pardon my foolish
thoughts. You go to see her sometimes, I believe?"
"When I think I can be of any use, I go. Her husband was once my dear
friend: I go there for his sake."
"Why does he not live here with her?"
"He cannot always do just as he would. Just now he is in bad health."
"And she lost her baby, I hear."
"Yes. It was a great grief to both of them."
The sounding of the dinner-gong stopped the questioning. We may be
assured Karl lost no time in conducting Mrs. Cleeve to the house.