"Those declines are cured sometimes."
"Not often: when they fairly set in."
"Oh, doctor," he cried, clasping the old man's hand, and giving vent to some of the anguish that was rending him, "try and save her! Save her for my sake! You don't know the cause I have to ask it."
"I wish I could--for both your sakes. She is beyond earthly aid."
They stood looking at each other. Dr. Marlow, willing if possible to soothe in a degree the blow, resumed.
"I suppose I must, after all, have been mistaken in her constitution. When consumption showed itself in her brother, and he died of it, I watched her all the closer. But I could detect nothing wrong: though she was always one of those blossoms that a sharp wind would blow away. The disease was there, we must assume, and I failed to detect it."
"You say--you said but now--that it is not consumption," returned Mr. Lake, speaking sharply in his pain.
"Neither is it. But when unsoundness is inherent in the constitution it does not always show itself in the same form. Sometimes it comes out in one shape, sometimes in another."
There was no more to be said; nothing further to be learnt. Mr. Lake returned home with his burden of knowledge, wondering how much of this dread fiat Clara suspected, how much not. The shades of evening were on the room when he entered it, imparting to it a semi-gloom, but the rays of the fire-light fell on his wife's wasted face. Stirring the coals into a bright blaze, he sat down by her chair, and took her hand. Her wasted fingers entwined themselves fondly with his.
"I know where you have been, Robert. And I guess for what purpose."