Page:My Life and Loves.djvu/377

Rh explaining the sadness of his married life and had then asserted that the confession came to me from Carlyle himself.

At that dinner Sir Richard Quain said that he had been Mrs. Carlyle's physician and that he would tell me later exactly what Mrs. Carlyle had confessed to him. Here is Quain's account as he gave it me that night in a private room at the Garrick. He said:

"I had been a friend of the Carlyles for years: he was a hero to me, one of the wisest and best of men: she was singularly witty and worldlywise and pleased me even more than the sage. One evening I found her in great pain on the sofa: when I asked her where the pain was, she indicated her lower belly and I guessed at once that it must be some trouble connected with the change of life.

"I begged her to go up to her bedroom and I would come in a quarter of an hour and examine her, assuring her the while that I was sure I could give her almost immediate relief. She went upstairs. In about ten minutes I asked her husband, would he come with me? He replied in his broadest Sootch accent, always a sign of emotion with him:

'I'll have naething to do with it. Ye must just arrange it yerselves'.

"Thereupon I went upstairs and knocked at Mrs. Carlyle's bedroom door: no reply: I tried to enter: the door was locked and unable to get an answer I went downstairs in a huff and flung out of the house.

"I stayed away for a fortnight but when I went back one evening I was horrified to see how ill Mrs. Carlyle looked stretched out on the sofa, and as pale as death. 'You're worse!' I asked.

'Much worse and weaker!' she replied.

'You naughty obstinate creature!' I cried.

'I'm your friend and your doctor and anything