He, also, was much changed. His face had, in the last few months, grown grave and sad—almost stern in repose. Through his stepfather's intimacy with Dr. Seemann, Anselm knew the various phases of Stella's dangerous illness. He knew that latterly the physician was puzzled at the mental rigidity which had fallen on her. He had often seen her at a little distance when she walked in the Thiergarten, and had kept aloof for fear of causing her pain while she was still weak, and also because of the cruel perplexity which entangled their further meeting. Once, indeed, Dustiefoot nearly betrayed him as he sat at a little distance from the bench on which Stella rested—a book in her hand, but not reading. The dog recognised Anselm, and rushed up to him with signs of delight which he would never have bestowed on a stranger. He even rushed backwards and forwards between the two in a joyous way, as if anxious to tell his mistress that an old Lullaboolagana friend was near. But she did not heed Dustiefoot's movements. She sat pale and motionless, with downcast eyes, oblivious to all around her. The sight was more than Langdale could bear. He would have laid down his life to serve her, and yet he dared not speak to her, being in fear lest his face and the sound of his voice would do her harm, and not good. He suffered horribly. Yet he knew that hers was the more intolerable burden. For through all he had work to do, and he was in constant intercourse with people whose knowledge in some one direction exceeded his own—circumstances which serve to make life coherent to the lover of knowledge, even when it has lost its best savour.

To-day, when he came in, his mother observed with concern that the fagged, strained look with which she had been struck on first seeing him when she returned with her daughter from Dresden had deepened rather than become less.

'You are working too hard, Anselm,' she said, looking at him keenly. 'You are as greedy as ever after knowledge. Those lectures of Virchow at the University, and the honorary work at the hospital, and your writing, and all the rest of it, do not make much of a holiday.'

'You forget, mother, that I had a long one——'

'Oh, in Australia! I hope you don't think of going back there. I think there must be something insidious in the climate—something that undermines the constitution. There is that young lady the Professor met there and found so charming. You met her here, did you not?—Mrs. Ritchie, you know——'

'Yes—what of her?'

'Well, I should very much like to have your opinion of her. I have made her come here for a few days. She is sleeping just now. I am exceedingly afraid that there is something very much amiss.'

Langdale felt a terror of what fresh catastrophe might be in store. The fixed look in Stella's face the last time he saw her at a little distance had haunted him night and day.

There is always a shock in hearing our worst fears put into bald, uncompromising words. This Langdale experienced when his mother went on:

'It is not her body now, it is her mind. I am sure of that. Perhaps she would have more confidence in an English doctor. If you would see her here in an informal way—she and your stepfather were so friendly, and Amalie, too, is very fond of her. I hardly know what to think of her husband. Amalie says he is devoted to her—but, if that is the case, she cannot be devoted to him. There must be something very much amiss when two young people drift so far apart at a time like this.'