That it was unknown was in a large degree the core of his anxiety.  He had noticed for a long time that his mother was apparently very unsympathetic when his wife was suffering from violent attacks of sickness which made her physician tread softly and look grave, and that even Jane’s mother, though she nursed her daughter carefully, was reticent and exceedingly nervous. What could it mean?

He had just passed through an experience of this kind, and as he thought of Jane and her suffering the hurry of anxious love made him quicken his steps and he went rapidly home, so rapidly that he forgot the letter with which he had been intrusted.  He knew by the light in Jane’s room that she was awake and he hastened there.  She was evidently watching and listening for his coming, for as soon as the door was partly open, she half-rose from the couch on which she was lying and stretched out her arms to him.

In an instant he was kneeling at her side.  “My darling,” he whispered.  “My darling!  Are you better?”

“I am quite out of pain, John, only a little weak.  In a few days I shall be all right.”  But John, looking into the white face that had once been so radiant, only faintly admitted the promise of a few days putting all right.

“I have been lonely today dear, so lonely!  My mother did not come, and Mother Hatton has not even sent to ask whether I was alive or dead.”

“Yet she is very unhappy about your condition.  Jane, my darling Jane!  What is it that induces these attacks?  Does your medical man know?”

“If so, he does not tell me.  I am a little to blame this time, John.  On the afternoon I was taken sick, I went in the carriage to the village.  I ought not to have gone.  I was far from feeling well, and as soon as I reached the market-house, I met two men helping a wounded girl to the hospital.  Do you remember, John?”

“I remember.  Her hand was caught in some machinery and torn a good deal.  I sent the men with her to the village.”

“While I was speaking to her, Mrs. Mark Levy drove up.  She insisted on taking what she called ‘the poor victim’ to the hospital in her carriage; and before I could interfere the two men lifted the girl into Mrs. Levy’s carriage and they were off like lightning without a word to me.  I was so angry.  I turned sick and faint and was obliged to come home as quickly as possible and send for Dr. Sewell.”

“O Jane!  Why did you care?”

“I was shocked by that woman’s interference.”

“She meant it kindly.  I suppose——­”

“But what right had she to meddle with your hands?  If the girl required to be taken in a carriage to the hospital, there was my carriage.  I think that incident helped to make me sick.”

“You should have lifted the injured girl at once, Jane, and then Mrs. Levy would have had no opportunity to take your place.”