“Trotwood, there is something that I want to ask you, and that I may not have another opportunity of asking for a long time, perhaps⁠—something I would ask, I think, of no one else. Have you observed any gradual alteration in Papa?”

I had observed it, and had often wondered whether she had too. I must have shown as much, now, in my face; for her eyes were in a moment cast down, and I saw tears in them.

“Tell me what it is,” she said, in a low voice.

“I think⁠—shall I be quite plain, Agnes, liking him so much?”

“Yes,” she said.

“I think he does himself no good by the habit that has increased upon him since I first came here. He is often very nervous⁠—or I fancy so.”

“It is not fancy,” said Agnes, shaking her head.