CHAPTER VIII.

      SUSPENSE.

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      Mrs. Halliburton sat in her chair, still enough except for the wailing cry which had just escaped her lips. Her husband would not look at her in that moment. His gaze was bent on the fire, and his cheek lay in his hand. As she cried out, he stretched forth his other hand and let it fall lightly upon hers.

      "Jane, had I thought you would look at the dark side of the picture, I should have hesitated to tell you. Why, my dear child, the very fact of my telling you at all, should convince you that there's nothing very serious the matter," he added, in cheering tones of reasoning. Now that he had spoken, he deemed it well to make the very best he could of it.

      "You say they will not insure your life?"

      "Well, Jane, perhaps that expression was not a correct one. They have not declined as yet to do so; but Dr. Carrington says he cannot give the necessary certificate as to my being a thoroughly sound and healthy man."

      "Then you did go up to Dr. Carrington?"

      "I did. Forgive me, Jane: I could not enter upon it before all the children."

      She leaned over and laid her head upon his shoulder. "Tell me all about it, Edgar," she whispered; "as much as you know yourself."

      "I have told you nearly all, Jane. I saw Dr. Carrington, and he asked me a great many questions, and examined me here"—touching his chest. "He fancies the organs are not sound, and declined giving the certificate."

      "That your chest is not sound?" asked Jane.

      "He said the lungs."

      "Ah!" she uttered. "What else did he say?"

      "Well, he said nothing about heart, or liver, or any other vital part, so I conclude they are all right, and that there was nothing to say," replied Mr. Halliburton, attempting to be cheerful. "I could have told him my brain was strong enough had he asked about that, for I'm sure it gets its full share of work. I need not have mentioned this to you at all, Jane, but for a perplexing bit of advice the doctor gave me."

      Jane sat straight in her chair again, and looked at Mr. Halliburton. The colour was beginning to return to her face. He continued:

      "Dr. Carrington earnestly recommends me to remove from London. Indeed—he said—that it was necessary—if I would get well. No wonder that you found my manner absent," he continued very rapidly after his hesitation, "with that unpalatable counsel to digest."

      "Did he think you very ill?" she breathed.

      "He did not say I was 'very ill,' Jane. I am not very ill, as you may see for yourself. My dear, what he said was that my lungs were—were——"

      "Diseased?" she put in.

      "Diseased. Yes, that was it," he truthfully replied. "It is the term that medical men apply when they wish to indicate delicacy. And he strenuously recommended me to leave London."

      "For how long? Did he say?"

      "He said for good."

      Jane felt startled. "How could it be done, Edgar?"

      "In truth I do not know. If I leave London I leave my living behind me. Now you see why I was so absorbed at tea-time. When you saw me go out, I was going round to Allen's."

      "And what does he say?" she eagerly interrupted.

      "Oh, he seems to think it a mere nothing, compared with Dr. Carrington. He agreed with him on one point—that I ought to live out of London."

      "Edgar, I will tell you what I think must be done," said Jane, after a pause. "I have not had time to reflect much upon it: but it strikes me that it would be advisable for you to see another doctor, and take his opinion: some man who is clever in affections of the lungs. Go to him to-morrow, without any delay. Should he say that you must leave London, of course we must leave it, no matter what the sacrifice."

      The advice corresponded with Mr. Halliburton's own opinion, and he resolved to follow it. A conviction amounting to a certainty was upon him, that, go to what doctor he might, the fiat would be the same as Dr. Carrington's. He did not say so to Jane. On the contrary, he spoke of these insurance-office doctors as being over-fastidious in the interests of the office; and he tried to deceive his own heart with the sophistry.

      "Shall you apply to another office to insure your life?" Jane asked.

      "I would, if I thought it would not be useless."

      "You think it would be useless?"

      "The offices all keep their own doctors, and those doctors, it is my belief, are unnecessarily particular. I should call them crotchety, Jane."

      "I think it must amount to this," said Jane; "that if there is anything seriously the matter with you, no office will be found to do it; but if the affection is only trifling or temporary you may be accepted."

      "That is about it. Oh, Jane!" he added, with an irrepressible burst of anguish, "what would I not give to have insured my life before this came upon me! All those past years! They seem to have been allowed to run to waste, when I might have been using them to lay up in store for the children!"

      How many are there of us who, looking back, can feel that our past years, in some way or other, have not been allowed to run to waste?

      What a sleepless night that was for him! What a sleepless night for his wife! Both rose in the morning equally unrefreshed.

      "To what doctor will you go?" Jane inquired as she was dressing.

      "I have been thinking of Dr. Arnold of Finsbury," he replied.

      "Yes, you could not go to a better. Edgar, you will let me accompany you?"

      "No, no, Jane. Your accompanying me would do no good. You could not go into the room with me."

      She saw the force of the objection. "I shall be so very anxious," she said, in a low tone.

      He laughed at her; he was willing to make light of it if it might ease her fears. "My dear, I will come home at once and report to you: I will borrow Jack's seven-leagued boots, that I may come to you the quicker."

      "You know that I shall be anxious," she repeated, feeling vexed.

      "Jane," he said, his tone changing: "I see that you are more anxious already than is good for you. It is not well that you should be so."

      "I wish I could be with you! I wish I could hear, as you will, Dr. Arnold's opinion from his own lips!" was all she answered.

      "I will faithfully repeat it to you," said Mr. Halliburton.

      "Faithfully—word for word? On your honour?"

      "Yes, Jane, I will. You have my promise. Good news I shall be only too glad to tell you; and, should it be the worst, it will be necessary that you should know it."

      "You must be there before ten o'clock," she observed; "otherwise there will be little chance of seeing him."

      "I shall be there by nine, Jane. To