I don’t know what you will say to me for introducing you into the privacy of Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins’s bed-chamber, but it is really necessary to do so. We cannot very well get on without it.

A conjugal dispute had occurred that morning when Mrs. Jenkins got up. She was an early riser; as was Jenkins also, in a general way; but since his illness, he had barely contrived to come down in time for breakfast. On this morning—which was not the one following the application of mustard to his chest, but one about a week after that medicinal operation—Mrs. Jenkins, on preparing to descend, peremptorily ordered him to remain in bed. Nothing need be recorded of the past week, except two facts: Charles Channing had not been discovered, either in life or in death; and the Earl of Carrick had terminated his visit, and left Helstonleigh.

“I’ll bring up your breakfast,” said Mrs. Jenkins.

“It is of no use to say that,” Jenkins ventured meekly to remonstrate. “You know I must get up.”

“I say you shall not get up. Here you are, growing weaker and worse every day, and yet you won’t take care of yourself! Where’s the use of your taking a bottle a-day of cough-mixture—where’s the use of your making the market scarce of cod-liver oil—where’s the use of wasting mustard, if it’s all to do you no good? Does it do you any good?”

“I am afraid it has not, as yet,” confessed Jenkins.

“And never will, so long as you give your body and brains no rest. Out you go by nine o’clock, in all weathers, ill or well, and there you are at your business till evening; stooping yourself double over the writing, dancing abroad on errands, wearing out your lungs with answers to callers! There’s no sense in it.”

“But, my dear, the office must be attended to,” said Jenkins, with much deference.

“There’s no ‘must’ in the case, as far as you are concerned. If I say you shan’t go to it, why, you shan’t. What’s the office, pray, in comparison with a man’s life?”

“But I am not so ill as to remain away. I can still go and do my work.”

“You’d be for going, if you were in your coffin!” was Mrs. Jenkins’s wrathful answer. “Could you do any good then, pray?”

“But I am not in my coffin,” mildly suggested Jenkins.

“Don’t I say you’d go, if you were?” reiterated Mrs. Jenkins, who sometimes, in her heat, lost sight of the precise point under dispute. “You know you would! you know there’s nothing in the whole world that you think of, but that office! Office—office—office, it is with you from morning till night. When you are in your coffin, through it, you’ll be satisfied.”

“But it is my duty to go as long as I can, my dear.”

“It’s my duty to do a great many things that I don’t do!” was the answer; “and one of my duties which I haven’t done yet, is to keep you indoors for a bit, and nurse you up. I shall begin from to-day, and see if I can’t get you well, that way.”

“But—”

“Hold your tongue, Jenkins. I never say a thing but you are sure to put in a ‘but.’ You lie in bed this morning,—do you hear?—and I’ll bring up your breakfast.”

Mrs. Jenkins left the room with the last order, and that ended the discussion. Had Jenkins been a free agent—free from work—he had been only too glad to obey her. In his present state of health, the duties of the office had become almost too much for him; it was with difficulty that he went to it and performed them. Even the walk, short as it was, in the early morning, was almost beyond his strength; even the early rising was beginning to tell upon him. And though he had little hope that nursing himself up indoors would prove of essential service, he felt that the rest it brought would be to him an inestimable boon.

But Jenkins was one who thought of duty before he thought of himself; and, therefore, to remain away from the office, if he could drag himself to it, appeared to him little less than a sin. He was paid for his time and services—fairly paid—liberally paid, some might have said—and they belonged to his master. But it was not so much from this point of view that Jenkins regarded the necessity of going—conscientious though he was—as at the thought of what the office would do without him; for there was no one to replace him but Roland Yorke. Jenkins knew what he was; and so do we.

To lie in bed, or remain indoors, under these circumstances, Jenkins felt to be impossible; and when his watch gave him warning that the breakfast hour was approaching, up he got. Behold him sitting on the side of the bed, trying to dress himself—trying to do it. Never had Jenkins felt weaker, or less able to battle with his increasing illness, than on this morning; and when Mrs. Jenkins dashed in—for her quick ears had caught the sounds of his stirring—he sat there still, stockings in hand, unable to help himself.

“So you were going to trick me, were you! Are you not ashamed of yourself, Jenkins?”

Jenkins gasped twice before he could reply. A giddiness seemed to be stealing over him, as it had done that other evening, under the elm trees. “My dear, it is of no use your talking; I must go to the office,” he panted.

“You shan’t go—if I lock you up! There!”

Jenkins was spared the trouble of a reply. The giddiness had increased to faintness, his sight left him, and he fell back on to the bed in a state of unconsciousness. Mrs. Jenkins rather looked upon it as a triumph. She put him into bed,............