"Yes, yes, I remember, of course, my dear," replied Mr. Carruthers, graciously; "but then, you see, however little I may think of Evans's notions on the subject, I am bound to communicate with the Home Office. If Mrs. Carruthers's illness did not render my absence improper and impossible, I should go to London myself, and lay the matter before Lord Wolstenholme; but, as I cannot do that, I must write at once." Mr. Carruthers, in his secret soul, regarded the obligation with no little dread, and would have been grateful for a suggestion which he would not have condescended to ask for.
"Then I will leave you, uncle," said Clare, making a strong effort to speak as cheerfully as possible, "to your task of telling the big wigs that there is nothing more to be done or known down here. You might make them laugh, if such solemn, grand people ever laugh, by telling them how the rural mind believes two vaguenesses to make a certainty, and make them grateful that Evans came to you, and not to them, with his mare's nest of corroborative evidence."
Clare's fair face was sharpened with anxiety as she spoke, despite the brightness of her tone, and she had narrowly watched the effect of her words. Her uncle felt that they conveyed precisely the hint he required, and was proportionally relieved.
"Of course, of course," he answered, in his grandest manner; and Clare moved towards the door, when, remembering the letters, she said:
"There are some letters for Mrs. Carruthers, uncle. I fancy she is too ill to see them. Two are from America; will you take them?"
"I take them, Clare, why?" asked her uncle, in a tone of dignified surprise.
"Only because, being foreign letters, I thought they might require attention--that's all," said Clare, feeling herself rebuked for a vulgarity. "They come from New York."
"Probably from Mr. Felton," said Mr. Carruthers, pointing the gold eye-glasses at the letters in Clare's hand with dignified coldness, but making no attempt to look at them nearer. "You had better lay them aside, or give them to Brookes or Dixon. I never meddle with Mrs. Carruthers's family correspondence."
Clare made her escape with the letters, feeling as if her ears had, morally speaking, been boxed; and diverted, for a little, by the sensation from the devouring anxiety she had felt that Mr. Carruthers should communicate in the tone which she had tried to insinuate with the dignitaries of the Home Office.
The door of Mrs. Carruthers's room was open, and the curtain partly withdrawn, when Clare reached it. She called softly to Dixon, but received no reply. Then she went in, and found the housekeeper again in attendance upon the patient. To her inquiries she received from Mrs. Brookes very discouraging replies, and the old woman stated her conviction strongly that it was going to be a very bad business, and that Clare had much better go to the Sycamores.