And John's attitude was one of uncertain trouble.

He carried himself intentionally with a lofty bearing, but in spite of all his efforts to appear beyond care, he was evidently in the grip of some unknown sorrow.
That it was unknown was in a large degree the core of his anxiety.

He had noticed for a long time that his mother was apparently very unsympathetic when his wife was suffering from violent attacks of sickness which made her physician tread softly and look grave, and that even Jane's mother, though she nursed her daughter carefully, was reticent and exceedingly nervous.

_What could it mean ?_ He had just passed through an experience of this kind, and as he thought of Jane and her suffering the hurry of anxious love made him quicken his steps and he went rapidly home, so rapidly that he forgot the letter with which he had been intrusted.

He knew by the light in Jane's room that she was awake and he hastened there.