nothing to do. Nobody else wants to see you; and nobody here wants to get rid of you.'
'You're wrong in all your three statements.'
'The deuce I am! Who wants to get rid of you?'
'That shall come last. I have something to do, and somebody else does want to see me. I've got a letter from Mary here, and another from Mrs. Thomas;' and he held up to view two letters which he had received, and which had, in truth, startled him.
'Mary's duenna;—the artist who is supposed to be moulding the wife.'
'Yes; Mary's duenna, or Mary's artist, whichever you please.'
'And which of them wants to see you? It's just like a woman, to require a man's attendance exactly when he is unable to move.'
Then Felix, though he did not give up the letters to be read, described to a certain extent their contents. 'I don't know what on earth has happened,' he said. 'Mary is praying to be forgiven, and saying that it is not her fault; and Mrs. Thomas is full of apologies, declaring that her conscience forces her to tell everything; and yet, between them both, I do not know what has happened.'
'Miss Snow has probably lost the key of the workbox you gave her.'
'I have not given her a workbox.'
'Then the writing-desk. That's what a man has to endure when he will make himself head schoolmaster to a young lady. And so you're going to look after your charge with your limbs still in bandages?'
'Just so;' and then he took up the two letters and read them again, while Staveley still sat on the foot of the bed. 'I wish I knew what to think about it,' said Felix.
'About what?' said the other. And then there was another pause, and another reading of a portion of the letters.
'There seems something—something almost frightful to me,' said Felix gravely, 'in the idea of marrying a girl in a few months' time, who now, at so late a period of our engagement, writes to me in that sort of cold, formal way.'
'It's the proper moulded-wife style, you may depend,' said Augustus.
'I'll tell you what, Staveley, if you can talk to me seriously for five minutes, I shall be obliged to you. If that is impossible to you, say so, and I will drop the matter.'
'Well, go on; I am serious enough in what I intend to express, even though I may not be so in my words.'
'I'm beginning to have my doubts about this dear girl.'
'I've had my doubts for some time.'
