There was, however, much worse coming than this. Two days afterwards Lily found herself to be rather unwell. She endeavoured to keep it to herself, fearing that she should be brought under the doctor's notice as a patient; but her efforts were unavailing, and on the following morning it was known that she had also taken the disease. Dr. Crofts declared that everything was in her favour. The weather was cold.

The presence of the malady in the house had caused them all to be careful, and, moreover, good advice was at hand at once. The doctor begged Mrs. Dale not to be uneasy, but he was very eager in begging that the two sisters might not be allowed to be together. "Could you not send Bell into Guestwick,--to Mrs. Eames's?" said he. But Bell did not choose to be sent to Mrs. Eames's, and was with great difficulty kept out of her mother's bedroom, to which Lily as an invalid was transferred.

"If you will allow me to say so," he said to Bell, on the second day after Lily's complaint had declared itself, "you are wrong to stay here in the house."

"I certainly shall not leave mamma, when she has got so much upon her hands," said Bell.

"But if you should be taken ill she would have more on her hands,"

pleaded the doctor.

"I could not do it," Bell replied. "If I were taken over to Guestwick, I should be so uneasy that I should walk back to Allington the first moment that I could escape from the house."

"I think your mother would be more comfortable without you."

"And I think she would be more comfortable with me. I don't ever like to hear of a woman running away from illness; but when a sister or a daughter does so, it is intolerable." So Bell remained, without permission indeed to see her sister, but performing various outside administrations which were much needed.

And thus all manner of trouble came upon the inhabitants of the Small House, falling upon them as it were in a heap together. It was as yet barely two months since those terrible tidings had come respecting Crosbie; tidings which, it was felt at the time, would of themselves be sufficient to crush them; and now to that misfortune other misfortunes had been added,--one quick upon the heels of another. In the teeth of the doctor's kind prophecy Lily became very ill, and after a few days was delirious. She would talk to her mother about Crosbie, speaking of him as she used to speak in the autumn that was passed. But even in her madness she remembered that they had resolved to leave their present home; and she asked the doctor twice whether their lodgings in Guestwick were ready for them.

It was thus that Crofts first heard of their intention. Now, in these days of Lily's worst illness, he came daily over to Allington, remaining there, on one occasion, the whole night. For all this he would take no fee;--nor had he ever taken a fee from Mrs. Dale. "I wish you would not come so often," Bell said to him one evening, as he stood with her at the drawing-room fire, after he had left the patient's room; "you are overloading us with obligations." On that day Lily was over the worst of the fever, and he had been able to tell Mrs. Dale that he did not think that she was now in danger.

"It will not be necessary much longer," he said; "the worst of it is over."

"It is such a luxury to hear you say so. I suppose we shall owe her life to you; but nevertheless--"

"Oh, no; scarlatina is not such a terrible thing now as it used to be."

"Then why should you have devoted your time to her as you have done?

It frightens me when I think of the injury we must have done you."

"My horse has felt it more than I have," said the doctor, laughing.

"My patients at Guestwick are not so very numerous." Then, instead of going, he sat himself down. "And it is really true," he said, "that you are all going to leave this house?"

"Quite true. We shall do so at the end of March, if Lily is well enough to be moved."

"Lily will be well long before that, I hope; not, indeed, that she ought to be moved out of her own rooms for many weeks to come yet."

"Unless we are stopped by her we shall certainly go at the end of March." Bell now had also sat down, and they both remained for some time looking at the fire in silence.

"And why is it, Bell?" he said, at last. "But I don't know whether I have a right to ask."

"You have a right to ask any question about us," she said. "My uncle is very kind. He is more than kind; he is generous. But he seems to think that our living here gives him a right to interfere with mamma.

We don't like that, and, therefore, we are going."

The doctor still sat on one side of the fire, and Bell still sat opposite to him; but the conversation did not form itself very freely between them. "It is bad news," he said, at last.

"At any rate, when we are ill you will not have so far to come and see us."

"Yes, I understand. That means that I am ungracious not to congratulate myself on having you all so much nearer to me; but I do not in the least. I cannot bear to think of you as living anywhere but here at Allington. Dales will be out of their place in a street at Guestwick."

"That's hard upon the Dales, too."

"It is hard upon them. It's a sort of offshoot from that very tyrannical law of noblesse oblige. I don't think you ought to go away from Allington, unless the circumstances are very imperative."

"But they are very imperative."

"In that case, indeed!" And then again he fell into silence.

"Have you never seen that mamma is not happy here?" she said, after another pause. "For myself, I never quite understood it all before as I do now; but now I see it."

"And I have seen it;--have seen at least what you mean. She has led a life of restraint; but then, how frequently is such restraint the necessity of a life? I hardly think that your mother would move on that account."

"No. It is on our account. But this restraint, as you call it, makes us unhappy, and she is governed by seeing that. My uncle is generous to her as regards money; but in other things,--in matters of feeling,--I think he has been ungenerous."

"Bell," said the doctor; and then he paused.

She looked up at him, but made no answer. He had always called her by her Christian name, and they two had ever regarded each other as close friends. At the present moment she had forgotten all else besides this, and yet she had infinite pleasure in sitting there and talking to him.

"I am going to ask you a question which perhaps I ought not to ask, only that I have known you so long that I almost feel that I am speaking to a sister."

"You may ask me what you please," said she.

"It is about your cousin Bernard."

"About Bernard!" said Bell.

It was now dusk; and as they were sitting without other light than that of the fire, she knew that he could not discern the colour which covered her face as her cousin's name was mentioned. But, had the light of day pervaded the whole room, I doubt whether Crofts would have seen that blush, for he kept his eyes firmly fixed upon the fire.

"Yes, about Bernard. I don't know whether I ought to ask you."

"I'm sure I can't say," said Bell, speaking words of the nature of which she was not conscious.

"There has been a rumour in Guestwick that he and you--"

"It is untrue," said Bell; "quite untrue. If you hear it repeated, you should contradict it. I wonder why people should say such things."

"It would have been an excellent marriage;--all your friends must have approved it."

"What do you mean, Dr. Crofts? How I do hate those words, 'an excellent marriage.' In them is contained more of wicked worldliness than any other words that one ever hears spoken. You want me to marry my cousin simply because I should have a great house to live in, and a coach. I know that you are my friend; but I hate such friendship as that."

"I think you misunderstand me, Bell. I mean that it would have been an excellent marriage, provided you had both loved each other."

"No, I don't misunderstand you. Of course it would be an excellent marriage, if we loved each other. You might say the same if I loved the butcher or the baker. What you mean is, that it makes a reason for loving him."

"I don't think I did mean that."

"Then you mean nothing."

After that, there were again some minutes of silence during which Dr. Crofts got up to go away. "You have scolded me very dreadfully,"

he said, with a slight smile, "and I believe I have deserved it for interfering--"