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."

"Yo............