"Has his lordship gone to Oxford?" Angela asked, after a silence broken
only by her sister's yawns.
"I doubt he is anywhere rather than in such good company," Hyacinth
answered, carelessly. "He hates the King, and would like to preach at him,
as John Knox did at his great-grandmother. Fareham is riding, or roving
with his dogs, I dare say. He has a gloomy taste for solitude."
"Hyacinth, do you not see that he is unhappy?" Angela asked, suddenly, and
the pain in her voice startled her sister from the contemplation of the
sublime Mandane.
"Unhappy, child! What reason has he to be unhappy?"
"Ah, dearest, it is that I would have you discover. 'Tis a wife's business
to know what grieves her husband."
"Unless it be Mrs. Lewin's bill--who is an inexorable harpy--I know of no
act of mine that can afflict him."
"I did not mean that his gloom was caused by any act of yours, sister. I
only urge you to discover why he is so sad."
"Sad? Sullen, you mean. He has a fine, generous nature. I am sure it is not
Lewin's charges that trouble him. But he had always a sullen temper--by
fits and starts."
"But of late he has been always silent and gloomy."
"How the child watches him! Ma tres chere, that silence is natural.
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