ey ache with the burden of it. And there is no
redress. And the trouble grows stronger alas. Its voice--so dear, yet
so dreaded--grows louder, till it deafens me to all other sounds. The
music of this once beautiful world becomes faint. Only angry discord
remains. And I become selfish. I am the victim of a fixed idea. I
become heedless of the suffering of those about me. And you, my poor
Julius, must have suffered very much!"

"Now, less than ever before," he answered. But even as he spoke,
Katherine was struck by his pallor, by the drawn look of his features
and languor of his bearing.

"Ah, you have fasted all day!" she cried.

"What matter?" he said, smiling. "The body surely can sustain a trifle
of hunger, if the soul and spirit are fed. I have feasted royally
to-day in that respect. I am strangely at ease. As to baser sort of
food, what wonder if I forgot?"

The door of Dickie's bedchamber opened, letting in long shafts of
sunlight, and Dr. Knott came slowly forward. His aspect was savage.
Even his philosophy had been not wholly proof against the pathos of his
patient's case. It irritated him to fall from his usual relentlessness
of common sense into a melting mood. He took refuge in sarcasm,
desirous to detect weakness in others, since he was, unwillingly, so
disagreeably conscious of it in himself.

"Well, we're through with our business, Lady Calmady," he said. "Eh!
Mr. March, what's wrong with you? Putty-coloured skin and shortness of
breath. A little less prayer and a little more physical exercise is
what you want. Successful, Lady Calmady?--Umph--I'm afraid the less
said about that the better. Sir Richard will talk it out with you
himself. Upset? Yes, I don't deny he is a little upset--and, like a
fool, I'm upset too. You can go to him now, Lady Calmady. Keep him
cheerful, please, and give him his head as much as you can."

John Knott watched her as she moved away. He shrugged his shoulders and
thrust his hands into his breeches' pockets.

"She's going to hear what she won't much relish, poor thing," he said.
"But I can't help that. One man's meat is another man's poison; and my
affair is with the boy's meat, even if it should be of a kind to turn
his mother's stomach. He shall have just all the chance I can get him,
poor little chap. And now, Mr. March, I propose to prescribe for you,
for you look uncommonly like taking a short-cut to heaven, and, if I
know anything about this house, you've got your