But Charley cannot any longer be called one of the Cottage circle. It was now the end of October, and since the day of his arrest, he had not yet been there. He had not been asked; nor would he go uninvited, as after what had passed at Hampton Court Bridge he surely might have done.

 

And consequently they were all unhappy. No one was more so than Charley. When the prospect² of the happy evening with Norah had been so violently interrupted by his arrest, he had, among his other messages, sent word to the 'Cat and Whistle,' excusing his absence by a statement of the true cause. From that day to this of which we are now speaking he had seen neither Mrs. Davis nor her fair prot間閑.

 

Nor were they better contented³ at the Cottage. Mrs. Woodward was harassed⁴ by different feelings and different fears, which together made her very unhappy. Her Katie was still ill; not ill indeed so that she was forced to keep her bed and receive daily visits from pernicious doctors, but, nevertheless, so ill as to make a mother very anxious.

 

She had never been quite strong, quite herself, from the night of Mrs. Val's dance. The doctor who had attended her declared that her ducking in the river had given her cold: and that this, not having been duly checked, still hung about her. Then she had been taken to a physician in London, who poked⁵ her on the back and tapped her on the breast, listened to her lungs through a wooden pipe—such was the account which Katie gave herself when she returned home—and prescribed rum and milk and cod-liver oil, declaring, with an authoritative⁶ nod, that there was no organic disease—as yet.

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