Although the statement thus presented implied a weakness in Mrs.
Vanstone's character which Miss Garth, after many years of intimate
experience, had never detected, she accepted the explanation as a matter
of course; receiving it all the more readily inasmuch as it might,
without impropriety, be communicated in substance to appease the
irritated curiosity of the two young ladies. For this reason especially
she perused the first half of the letter with an agreeable sense of
relief. Far different was the impression produced on her when she
advanced to the second half, and when she had read it to the end.

The second part of the letter was devoted to the subject of the journey
to London.

Mrs. Vanstone began by referring to the long and intimate friendship
which had existed between Miss Garth and herself. She now felt it due to
that friendship to explain confidentially the motive which had induced
her to leave home with her husband. Miss Garth had delicately refrained
from showing it, but she must naturally have felt, and must still be
feeling, great surprise at the mystery in which their departure had been
involved; and she must doubtless have asked herself why Mrs. Vanstone
should have been associated with family affairs which (in her
independent position as to relatives) must necessarily concern Mr.
Vanstone alone.

Without touching on those affairs, which it was neither desirable nor
necessary to do, Mrs. Vanstone then proceeded to say that she would
at once set all Miss Garth's doubts at rest, so far as they related to
herself, by one plain acknowledgment. Her object in accompanying her
husband to London was to see a certain celebrated physician, and to
consult him privately on a very delicate and anxious matter connected