Stockdale now began to notice more particularly a feature in the life ofhis fair landlady, which he had casually observed but scarcely everthought of before. It was that she was markedly irregular in her hoursof rising. For a week or two she would be tolerably punctual, reachingthe ground-floor within a few minutes of half-past seven. Then suddenlyshe would not be visible till twelve at noon, perhaps for three or fourdays in succession; and twice he had certain proof that she did not leaveher room till half-past three in the afternoon. The second time thatthis extreme lateness came under his notice was on a day when he hadparticularly wished to consult with her about his future movements; andhe concluded, as he always had done, that she had a cold, headache, orother ailment, unless she had kept herself invisible to avoid meeting andtalking to him, which he could hardly believe. The former suppositionwas disproved, however, by her innocently saying, some days later, whenthey were speaking on a question of health, that she had never had amoment's heaviness, headache, or illness of any kind since the previousJanuary twelvemonth.

'I am glad to hear it,' said he. 'I thought quite otherwise.'

'What, do I look sickly?' she asked, turning up her face to show theimpossibility of his gazing on it and holding such a belief for a moment.

'Not at all; I merely thought so from your being sometimes obliged tokeep your room through the best part of the day.'

'O, as for that--it means nothing,' she murmured, with a look which somemight have called cold, and which was the worst look that he liked to seeupon her. 'It is pure sleepiness, Mr. Stockdale.'

'Never!'

'It is, I tell you. When I stay in my room till half-past three in theafternoon, you may always be sure that I slept soundly till three, or Ishouldn't have stayed there.'

'It is dreadful,' said Stockdale, thinking of the disastrous effects ofsuch indulgence upon the household of a minister, should it become ahabit of everyday occurrence.

'But then,' she said, divining his good and prescient thoughts, 'it onlyhappens when I stay awake all night. I don't go to sleep till five orsix in the morning sometimes.'

'Ah, that's another matter,' said Stockdale. 'Sleeplessness to such analarming extent is real illness. Have you spoken to a doctor?'

'O no--there is no need for doing that--it is all natural to me.' Andshe went away without further remark.

Stockdale might have waited a long time to know the real cause of hersleeplessness, had it not happened that one dark night he was sitting inhis bedroom jotting down notes for a sermon, which occupied himperfunctorily for a considerable time after the other members of thehousehold had retired. He did not get to bed till one o'clock. Beforehe had fallen asleep he heard a knocking at the front door, first rathertimidly performed, and then louder. Nobody answered it, and the personknocked again. As the house still remained undisturbed, Stockdale gotout of bed, went to his window, which overlooked the door, and openingit, asked who was there.

A young woman's voice replied that Susan Wallis was there, and that shehad come to ask if Mrs. Newberry could give her some mustard to make aplaster with, as her father was taken very ill on the chest.

The minister, having neither bell nor servant, was compelled to act inperson. 'I will call Mrs. Newberry,' he said. Partly dressing himself;he went along the passage and tapped at Lizzy's door. She did notanswer, and, thinking of her erratic habits in the matter of sleep, hethumped the door persistently, when he discovered, by its moving ajarunder his knocking, that it had only been gently pushed to. As there wasnow a sufficient entry for the voice, he knocked no longer, but said infirm tones, 'Mrs. Newberry, you are wanted.'

The room was quite silent; not a breathing, not a rustle, came from anypart of it. Stockdale now sent a positive shout through the open spaceof the door: 'Mrs. Newberry!'--still no answer, or movement of any kindwithin. Then he heard sounds from the opposite room, that of Lizzy'smother, as if she had been aroused by his uproar though Lizzy had not,and was dressing herself hastily. Stockdale softly closed the youngerwoman's door and went on to the other, which was opened by Mrs. Simpkinsbefore he could reach it. She was in her ordinary clothes, and had alight in her hand.

'What's the person calling about?' she said in alarm.

Stockdale told the girl's errand, adding seriously, 'I cannot wake Mrs.Newberry.'

'It is no matter,' said her mother. 'I can let the girl have what shewants as well as my daughter.' And she came out of the room and wentdownstairs.

Stockdale retired towards his own apartment, saying, however, to Mrs.Simpkins from the landing, as if on second thoughts, 'I suppose there isnothing the matter with Mrs. Newberry, that I could not wake her?'

'O no,' said the old lady hastily. 'Nothing at all.'

Still the minister was not satisfied. 'Will you go in and see?' he said.'I should be much more at ease.'

Mrs. Simpkins returned up the staircase, went to her daughter's room, andcame out again almost instantly. 'There is nothing at all the matterwith Lizzy,' she said; and descended again to attend to the applicant,who, having seen the light, had remained quiet during this interval.

Stockdale went into his room and lay down as before. He heard Lizzy'smother open the front door, admit the girl, and then the murmureddiscourse of both as they went to the store-cupboard for the medicamentrequired. The girl departed, the door was fastened, Mrs. Simpkins cameupstairs, and the house was again in silence. Still the minister did notfall asleep. He could not get rid of a singular suspicion, which was allthe more harassing in being, if true, the most unaccountable thing withinhis experience. That Lizzy Newberry was in her bedroom when he made sucha clamour at the door he could not possibly convince himself;notwithstanding that he had heard her come upstairs at the usual time, gointo her chamber, and shut herself up in the usual way. Yet all reasonwas so much against her being elsewhere, that he was constrained to goback again to the unlikely theory of a heavy sleep, though he had heardneither breath nor movement during a shouting and knocking loud enough torouse the Seven Sleepers.

Before coming to any positive conclusion he fell asleep himself, and didnot awake till day. He saw nothing of Mrs. Newberry in the morning,before he went out to meet the rising sun, as he liked to do when theweather was fine; but as this was by no means unusual, he took no noticeof it. At breakfast-time he knew that she was not far off by hearing herin the kitchen, and though he saw nothing of her person, that backapartment being rigorously closed against his eyes, she seemed to betalking, ordering, and bustling about among the pots and skimmers in soordinary a manner, that there was no reason for his wasting more time infruitless surmise.

The minister suffered from these distractions, and his extemporizedsermons were not improved thereby. Already he often said Romans forCorinthians in the pulpit, and gave out hymns in strange cramped metres,that hitherto had always been skipped, because the congregation could notraise a tune to fit them. He fully resolved that as soon as his fewweeks of stay approached their end he would cut the matter short, andcommit himself by proposing a definite engagement, repenting at leisureif necessary.

With this end in view, he suggested to her on the evening after hermysterious sleep that they should take a walk together just before dark,the latter part of the proposition being introduced that they mightreturn home unseen. She consented to go; and away they went over astile, to a shrouded footpath suited for the occasion. But, in spite ofattempts on both sides, they were unable to infuse much spirit into theramble. She looked rather paler than usual, and sometimes turned herhead away.

'Lizzy,' said Stockdale reproachfully, when they had walked in silence along distance.

'Yes,' said she.

'You yawned--much my company is to you!' He put it in that way, but hewas really wondering whether her yawn could possibly have more to do withphysical weariness from the night before than mental weariness of thatpresent moment. Lizzy apologized, and owned that she was rather tired,which gave him an opening for a direct question on the point; but hismodesty would not allow him to put it to her; and he uncomfortablyresolved to wait.

The month of February passed with alternations of mud and frost, rain andsleet, east winds and north-westerly gales. The hollow places in theploughed fields showed themselves as pools of water, which had settledthere from the higher levels, and had not yet found time to soak away.The birds began to get lively, and a single thrush came just beforesunset each evening, and sang hopefully on the large elm-tree which stoodnearest to Mrs. Newberry's house. Cold blasts and brittle earth hadgiven place to an oozing dampness more unpleasant in itself than frost;but it suggested coming spring, and its unpleasantness was of a bearablekind.

Stockdale had been going to bring about a practical understanding withLizzy at least half-a-dozen times; but, what with the mystery of herapparent absence on the night of the neighbour's call, and her curiousway of lying in bed at unaccountable times, he felt a check within himwhenever he wanted to speak out. Thus they still lived on asindefinitely affianced lovers, each of whom hardly acknowledged theother's claim to the name of chosen one. Stockdale persuaded himselfthat his hesitation was owing to the postponement of the ordainedminister's arrival, and the consequent delay in his own departure, whichdid away with all necessity for haste in his courtship; but perhaps itwas only that his discretion was reasserting itself, and telling him thathe had better get clearer ideas of Lizzy before arranging for the grandcontract of his life with her. She, on her part, always seemed ready tobe urged further on that question than he had hitherto attempted to go;but she was none the less independent, and to a degree which would havekept from flagging the passion of a far more mutable man.

On the evening of the first of March he went casually into his bedroomabout dusk, and noticed lying on a chair a greatcoat, hat, and breeches.Having no recollection of leaving any clothes of his own in that spot, hewent and examined them as well as he could in the twilight, and foundthat they did not belong to him. He paused for a moment to consider howthey might have got there. He was the only man living in the house; andyet these were not his garments, unless he had made a mistake. No, theywere not his. He called up Martha Sarah.

'How did these things come in my room?' he said, flinging theobjectionable articles to the floor.

Martha said that Mrs. Newberry had given them to her to brush, and thatshe had brought them up there thinking they must be Mr. Stockdale's, asthere was no other gentleman a-lodging there.

'Of course you did,' said Stockdale. 'Now take them down to yourmis'ess, and say they are some clothes I have found here and know nothingabout.'

As the door was left open he heard the conversation downstairs. 'Howstupid!' said Mrs. Newberry, in a tone of confusion. 'Why, MartherSarer, I did not tell you to take 'em to Mr. Stockdale's room?'

'I thought they must be his as they was so muddy,' said Martha humbly.

'You should have left 'em on the clothes-horse,' said the young mistressseverely; and she came upstairs with the garments on her arm, quicklypassed Stockdale's room, and threw them forcibly into a closet at the endof a passage. With this the incident ended, and the house was silentagain.

There would have been nothing remarkable in finding such clothes in awidow's house had they been clean; or moth-eaten, or creased, or mouldyfrom long lying by; but that they should be splashed with recent mudbothered Stockdale a good deal. When a young pastor is in the aspenstage of attachment, and open to agitation at the merest trifles, areally substantial incongruity of this complexion is a disturbing thing.However, nothing further occurred at that time; but he became watchful,and given to conjecture, and was unable to forget the circumstance.

One morning, on looking from his window, he saw Mrs. Newberry herselfbrushing the tails of a long drab greatcoat, which, if he mistook not,was the very same garment as the one that had adorned the chair of hisroom. It was densely splashed up to the hollow of the back withneighbouring Nether-Moynton mud, to judge by its colour, the spots beingdistinctly visible to him in the sunlight. The previous day or twohaving been wet, the inference was irresistible that the wearer had quiterecently been walking some considerable distance about the lanes andfields. Stockdale opened the window and looked out, and Mrs. Newberryturned her head. Her face became slowly red; she never had lookedprettier, or more incomprehensible, he waved his hand affectionately, andsaid good-morning; she answered with embarrassment, having ceased heroccupation on the instant that she saw him, and rolled up the coat half-cleaned.

Stockdale shut the window. Some simple explanation of her proceeding wasdoubtless within the bounds of possibility; but he himself could notthink of one; and he wished that she had placed the matter beyondconjecture by voluntarily saying something about it there and then.

But, though Lizzy had not offered an explanation at the moment, thesubject was brought forward by her at the next time of their meeting. Shewas chatting to him concerning some other event, and remarked that ithappened about the time when she was dusting some old clothes that hadbelonged to her poor husband.

'You keep them clean out of respect to his memory?' said Stockdaletentatively.

'I air and dust them sometimes,' she said, with the most charminginnocence in the world.

'Do dead men come out of their graves and walk in mud?' murmured theminister, in a cold sweat at the deception that she was practising.

'What did you say?' asked Lizzy.

'Nothing, nothing,' said he mournfully. 'Mere words--a phrase that willdo for my sermon next Sunday.' It was too plain that Lizzy was unawarethat he had seen actual pedestrian splashes upon the skirts of the tell-tale overcoat, and that she imagined him to believe it had come directfrom some chest or drawer.

The aspect of the case was now considerably darker. Stockdale was somuch depressed by it that he did not challenge her explanation, orthreaten to go off as a missionary to benighted islanders, or reproachher in any way whatever. He simply parted from her when she had donetalking, and lived on in perplexity, till by degrees his natural mannerbecame sad and constrained.