'Oh! Alaric,' said she, 'you are so pale: what is the matter? Do tell me,' and she put her arm through his, took hold of his hand, and looked up into his face.
'The matter! Nothing is the matter—a man can't always be grinning;' and he gently shook her off, and walked through their bedroom to his own dressing-room. Having entered it he shut the door, and then, sitting down, bowed his head upon a small table and buried it in his hands. All the world seemed to go round and round with him; he was giddy, and he felt that he could not stand.
Gertrude paused a moment in the bedroom to consider, and then followed him. 'What is it you want?' said he, as soon as he heard the handle turn, 'do leave me alone for one moment. I am fagged with the heat, and I want one minute's rest.'
'Oh, Alaric, I see you are ill,' said she. 'For God's sake do not send me from you,' and coming into the room she knelt down beside his chair. 'I know you are suffering, Alaric; do let me do something for you.'
He longed to tell her everything. He panted to share his sorrows with one other bosom; to have one near him to whom he could speak openly of everything, to have one counsellor in his trouble. In that moment he all but resolved to disclose everything to her, but at last he found that he could not do it. Charley was there waiting for his dinner; and were he now to tell his secret to his wife, neither of them, neither he nor she, would be able to act the host or hostess. If done at all, it could not at any rate be done at the present moment.
'I am better now,' said he, giving a long and deep sigh; and then he threw his arms round his wife and passionately embraced her. 'My own angel, my best, best love, how much too good or much too noble you are for such a husband as I am!'
'I wish I could be good enough for you,' she replied, as she began to arrange his things for dressing. 'You are so tired, dearest; wash your hands and come down—don't trouble yourself to dress this evening; unless, indeed, you are going out again.'
'Gertrude,' said he, 'if there be a soul on earth that has not in it a spark of what is good or generous, it is the soul of Undy Scott;' and so saying he began the operations of his toilet.
Now Gertrude had never liked Undy Scott; she had attributed to him whatever faults her husband might have as a husband; and at the present moment she was not inclined to fight for any of the Scott family.
'He is a very worldly man, I think,' said she.