"And pray how do you come to remember so exactly the name of the disease spoken of?"
"Because I went—now don't be angry, I really can't see any harm in what I did—"
"Then, don't deprecate anger. You went—"
"Into the surgery, and looked it out. Why might not I?"
Mr. Gibson did not answer—did not look at her. His face was very pale, and both forehead and lips were contracted. At length he roused himself, sighed, and said,—
"Well! I suppose as one brews one must bake."
"I don't understand what you mean," pouted she.
"Perhaps not," he replied. "I suppose that it was what you heard on that occasion that made you change your behaviour to Roger Hamley? I've noticed how much more civil you were to him of late."
"If you mean that I have ever got to like him as much as Osborne, you are very much mistaken; no, not even though he has offered to Cynthia, and is to be my son-in-law."
"Let me know the whole affair. You overheard,—I will own that it was Osborne about whom we were speaking, though I shall have something to say about that presently—and then, if I understand you rightly, you changed your behaviour to Roger, and made him more welcome to this house than you had ever done before, regarding him as proximate heir to the Hamley estates?"