"Jones," Lady Fitzgerald had said to her, very earnestly, "if you know more about this man than you are telling me, you are bound to speak out, and let me know everything."
"Who—I, my lady? what could I know? Only he do look to me like the same man, and so I thought it right to say to your ladyship."
Lady Fitzgerald had seen that there was nothing more to be gained by cross-questioning, and so she had allowed the matter to drop. But she was by no means satisfied that this servant whom she so trusted did not know more than she had told. And then Mrs. Jones had been with her in those dreadful Dorsetshire days, and an undefined fear began to creep over her very soul.
"God bless you, my child!" said Lady Fitzgerald, as her son got up to leave her. And then she embraced him with more warmth even than was her wont. "All that we can do at present is to be gentle with him, and not to encourage people around him to talk of his illness."
On the next morning Lady Fitzgerald did not come down to breakfast, but sent her love to Clara, and begged her guest to excuse her on account of headache. Sir Thomas rarely came in to breakfast, and therefore his absence was not remarkable. His daughters, however, went up to see him, as did also his sister; and they all declared that he was very much better.
"It was some sudden attack, I suppose?" said Clara.
"Yes, very sudden; he has had the same before," said Herbert. "But they do not at all affect his intellect or bodily powers. Depression is, I suppose, the name that the doctors would call it."
And then at last it became noticeable by them that Lady Clara did not use her left arm. "Oh, Clara!" said Emmeline, "I see now that you are hurt. How selfish we have been! Oh dear, oh dear!" And both Emmeline and Mary immediately surrounded her, examining her arm, and almost carrying her to the sofa.
"I don't think it will be much," said Clara. "It's only a little stiff."
"Oh, Herbert, what shall we do? Do look here; the inside of her arm is quite black."