“Oh, for me nothing!  I want to talk about my husband.  He is ill, I am sure—­he is ill.  He eats little, he sleeps badly, he has lost—­oh, altogether lost—­his natural gaiety.  He hardly speaks at all.”

The Doctor was silent.

“Well,” she said.

“Can you bear a little frank talk?” he asked.

“Yes—­why not?”

“Do you know that he is on the verge of complete financial ruin?”

“What does that matter?  I can—­I can bear anything—­give up anything—­”

“You have the woman’s—­the good woman’s—­indifference about money.  Do you talk to him about it?”

“No.  We get on at once to the causes of trouble—­this unrighteous war—­that I can’t stand.”

“Ah, Mrs. Penhallow, there must be in the North and South many families divided in opinion; what do you suppose they do?  This absolute silence is fatal.  You two are drifting apart—­”

“Oh, not that!  Surely not that!”

“Yes!  The man is worried past endurance.  If he really were to fall ill—­a serious typhoid, for instance, the South and your brother and John, everything would be forgotten—­there would be only James Penhallow.  It would be better to talk of the war—­to quarrel over it—­to make him talk business—­oh, anything rather than to live as you are living.  He is not ill.  Go home and comfort him.  He needs it.  He has become a lonely man, and it is your fault.  He was here to-day in the utmost distress about you—­”

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“There is nothing the matter with me!”

“Yes, there is—­oh, with both of you.  This war will last for years—­and so will you.  All I have to say is that my friend, James Penhallow, is worth all the South, and that soon or late he will stand it no longer and will go where he ought to be—­into the army.”

“You are talking nonsense—­he will never leave the mills.”  He had called up her constant fear.

“It is not nonsense.  When he is a broken man and you and he are become irritable over a war you did not make and cannot end, he will choose absence and imperative duty as his only relief.”

As she stood up, red and angry, she said, “You have only hurt and not helped me.”  She said no other word as he went with her to the wagon.  He looked after her a moment.

“Well, well!  There are many kinds of fools—­an intelligent fool is the worst.  I didn’t help her any, and by George!  I am sorry.”

When at twilight the doctor came home from distant visits to farms, he met Leila near to his door.  “I want to see you a minute,” she said, as she slipped out of her saddle.

“A woman’s minute or a man’s minute?”

“A man’s.”

She secured her mare as he said, “Well, come in.  It’s rather amusing, Leila.  Sit down.  I’ve had James Penhallow here to say his wife’s breaking down.  I’ve had Mrs. Penhallow here to say James Penhallow is ill.  Except the maids and the cats and you, all Grey Pine is diagnosing one another.  And now, you come!  Don’t tell me you’re ill—­I won’t have it.”