thoughts, even to her
husband. Speech seemed an inefficient and blundering medium of
communication, and she found it easier to write than to talk. There was
a natural taciturnity about her which sealed her lips, even when her
children were prattling to her. Only in writing could she give
expression to the multitude of her thoughts within her; and her letters
were charming, and of exceeding interest. But in this great crisis in
her life she could not write. She would sit for hours vainly striving to
arouse her languid brain. It seemed to her that she had lost this gift
also in the utter ruin that had overtaken her.

Felicita's white, silent, benumbed grief, accepting the conviction of
her husband's guilt with no feminine contradicting or loud lamenting,
touched Mr. Clifford with more pity than he felt for Madame, who bore
her son's mysterious absence with a more simple and natural sorrow.
There was something irritating to him in the fact that Roland's mother
ignored the accusation he made against him. But when Roland had been
away three months, and the police authorities had given up all
expectation of discovering anything by watching his home and family, Mr.
Clifford felt that it was time something should be arranged which would
deliver Felicita from her voluntary imprisonment.

"Why do you not go away?" he asked her; "you cannot continue to live
mewed up here all your days. If Roland should be found, it would be
better for you not to be in Riversborough. And I for one have given up
the expectation that he will be found; the only chance is that he may
return and give himself up. Go to some place where you are not known.
There is Scarborough; take Madame and the children there for a few
months, and then settle in London for the winter. Nobody will know you
in London."

"But how can we leave this house?" she said, with a gleam of light in
her sad eyes.

"Let me come in just as it is," he answered. "I will pay you a good rent
for it, and you can take a part of the furniture to London, to make
your new dwelling there more like home. It would be a great convenience
to me, and it would be the best thing for you, depend upon it. If Roland
returns he never will live here again."

"No, he could never do that," she said, sighing deeply. "Mr. Clifford,
sometimes I think he must be dead."

"I have thought so too," he replied gravely; "and if it were so, it
would be the salvation of you and your children. There would be no
p