urned till near six in the
morning, and then was so deadly pale and seemed so exhausted that she
insisted on his keeping to his bed till she could get medical advice.
The doctors feared that he had been attacked by some strange form of
malarial fever, and said he needed much care. Our anxiety was, however,
at least temporarily relieved by the receipt of later tidings which
spoke of John's recovery; but November drew to a close without any
definite mention of their return having reached us.

That month is always, I think, a dreary one in the country. It has
neither the brilliant tints of October, nor the cosy jollity of
mid-winter with its Christmas joys to alleviate it. This year it was
more gloomy than usual. Incessant rain had marked its close, and the
Roy, a little brook which skirted the gardens not far from the house,
had swollen to unusual proportions. At last one wild night the flood
rose so high as to completely cover the garden terraces, working havoc
in the parterres, and covering the lawns with a thick coat of mud.
Perhaps this gloominess of nature's outer face impressed itself in a
sense of apprehension on our spirits, and it was with a feeling of more
than ordinary pleasure and relief that early in December we received a
letter dated from Laon, saying that our travellers were already well
advanced on their return journey, and expected to be in England a week
after the receipt by us of this advice. It was, as usual, Constance who
wrote. John begged, she said, that Christmas might be spent at Worth
Maltravers, and that we would at once proceed thither to see that all
was in order against their return. They reached Worth about the middle
of the month, and were, I need not say, received with the utmost
affection by Mrs. Temple and myself.

In reply to our inquiries John professed that his health was completely
restored; but though we could indeed discern no other signs of any
special weakness, we were much shocked by his changed appearance. He had
completely lost his old healthy and sunburnt complexion, and his face,
though not thin or sunken, was strangely pale. Constance assured us
that though in other respects he had apparently recovered, he had never
regained his old colour from the night of his attack of fever at Naples.

I soon perceived that her own spirits were not so bright as was
ordinarily the case with her; and she exhibited none of the eagerness to
narrate to others the incidents of travel which