The doctor threw his penetrating gaze into Austin's eyes. 'Have you no idea what it is?'
'None, sir. She seemed to intimate that she came every year.'
'Good. Don't try to form any, my young friend. It would not be a pleasant secret, even for you to hold!'
He rose as he spoke, nodded, and went out, leaving Austin Clay in a state of puzzled bewilderment. It was not lessened when, an hour later, Austin encountered Dr. Bevary's close carriage, driving rapidly along the street, the doctor seated inside it, and Miss Gwinn beside him.
CHAPTER VI. TRACKED HOME.
I think it has been mentioned that the house next door to the Quales', detached from it however, was inhabited by two families: the lower part by Mr. Samuel Shuck, his wife, and children; the upper and best part by the Baxendales. No two sets of people could be more dissimilar; the one being as respectable as the other was disreputable. John Baxendale's wife was an invalid; she had been so, on and off, for a long while. There was an only daughter, and she and her mother held themselves very much aloof from the general society of Daffodil's Delight.
On the morning following the day spoken of in the last chapter as distinguished by the advent of Miss Gwinn in London, Mrs. Baxendale found herself considerably worse than usual. Mr. Rice, the apothecary, who was the general attendant in Daffodil's Delight, and lived at its corner, had given her medicine, and told her to 'eat well and get up her strength.' But, somehow, the strength and the appetite did not come; on the contrary, she got weaker and weaker. She was in very bad spirits this morning, was quite unable to get up, and cried for some time in silence.
'Mother, dear,' said Mary Baxendale, going into her room, 'you'll have the doctor gone out, I fear.'
'Oh, Mary! I cannot get up—I cannot go,' was the answer, delivered with a burst of sobbing sorrow. 'I shall never rise from my bed again.'