'No; Tina would have kept the baby-bunting out of harm's way.'
'More likely he would have bored me into going. Poor Tina! I should
almost like to hear him jaw again! After all, you and he never
promised, and I did.'
'I wish I had,' said Fulbert; 'I am awfully afraid they are getting
hold of it in the town.'
'So am I. Mowbray Smith looked me all over, and asked me after
Clement, when I met him just now in the street, as if he had some
malice in his head.'
'What did you tell him?'
'I said he was in a state of collapse, and that serious fears were
entertained for his life and reason; and then he warned me against
the nineteenth-century manners, and I thanked him and made a bow, and
now I suppose he is gone to tell my Lady.
When Felix was free in the evening, he found Clement dressed, and
sitting over the fire in his room--so well indeed, that he might have
been downstairs, but that he shrank from every one; and that fire had
been the fruit of such persevering battles of Wilmet and Sibby with
the smoke and soot, that it would have been a waste of good labour to
have deserted it.
'Well, Clem, you are better?'
'Yes, thank you.
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