'Let me see it,' involuntarily passed my lips. He was
evidently reluctant to grant the request, but while he hesitated I
snatched it from his hand. Recollecting myself, however, the minute
after, I offered to restore it.

'Here, take it,' said I, 'if you don't want me to read it.'

'No,' replied he, 'you may read it if you like.'

I read it, and so may you.

Grassdale, Nov. 4th.

DEAR FREDERICK,--I know you will be anxious to hear from me, and I will
tell you all I can. Mr. Huntingdon is very ill, but not dying, or in any
immediate danger; and he is rather better at present than he was when I
came. I found the house in sad confusion: Mrs. Greaves, Benson, every
decent servant had left, and those that were come to supply their places
were a negligent, disorderly set, to say no worse--I must change them
again, if I stay. A professional nurse, a grim, hard old woman, had been
hired to attend the wretched invalid. He suffers much, and has no
fortitude to bear him through. The immediate injuries he sustained from
the accident, however, were not very severe, and would, as the doctor
says, have been but trifling to a man of temperate habits, but with him
it is very different. On the night of my arrival, when I first entered
his room, he was lying in a kind of half delirium. He did not notice me
till I spoke, and then he mistook me for another.

'Is it you, Alice, come again?' he murmured. 'What did you leave me
for?'

'It is I, Arthur--it is Helen, your wife,' I replied.

'My wife!' said he, with a start. 'For heaven's sake, don't mention
her--I have none. Devil take her,' he cried, a moment after, 'and you,
too! What did you do it for?'

I said no more; but observing that he kept gazing towards the foot of the
bed, I went and sat there, placing the light so as to shine full upon me,
for I thought he might be dying, and I wanted him to know me. For a long
time he lay silently looking upon me, first with a vacant stare, then
with a fixed gaze of strange growing intensity. At last he startled me
by suddenly raising himself on his elbow and demanding in a horrified
whisper, with his eyes still fixed upon me, 'Who is it?'

'It is Helen Huntingdon,' said I, quietly rising at the same time, and
removing to a less conspicuous position.

'I must be going mad,' cried he, 'or something--delirious, perhaps; but
leave me, whoever you are. I can't bear that