d rendered a post-mortem examination necessary. From
those starting points, I arrived--by devious ways which I am now to
relate--at deductions and discoveries that threw a new light on the
nature and treatment of brain disease."

Hour by hour, Ovid studied the pages that followed, until his mind and
the mind of the writer were one. He then returned to certain preliminary
allusions to the medical treatment of the two girls--inexpressibly
precious to him, in Carmina's present interests. The dawn of day found
him prepared at all points, and only waiting until the lapse of the next
few hours placed the means of action in his hands.

But there was one anxiety still to be relieved, before he lay down to
rest.

He took off his shoes, and stole upstairs to Carmina's door. The
faithful Teresa was astir, earnestly persuading her to take some
nourishment. The little that he could hear of her voice, as she
answered, made his heart ache--it was so faint and so low. Still she
could speak; and still there was the old saying to remember, which has
comforted so many and deceived so many: While there's life, there's
hope.

CHAPTER LX.

After a brief interview with his step-son, Mr. Gallilee returned to his
daughters in Scotland.

Touched by his fatherly interest in Carmina, Ovid engaged to keep him
informed of her progress towards recovery. If the anticipation of
saving her proved to be the sad delusion of love and hope, silence would
signify what no words could say.

In ten days' time, there was a happy end to suspense. The slow process
of recovery might extend perhaps to the end of the year. But, if
no accident happened, Ovid had the best reasons for believing that
Carmina's life was safe.

Freed from the terrible anxieties that had oppressed him, he was able to
write again, a few days later, in a cheerful tone, and to occupy his
pen at Mr. Gallilee's express request, with such an apparently trifling
subject as the conduct of Mr. Null.

"Your old medical adviser was quite right in informing you that I had
relieved him from any further attendance on Carmina. But his
lively imagination (or perhaps I ought to say, his sense of his own
consequence) has misled you when he also declares that I purposely
insulted him. I took the greatest pains not to wound his self-esteem. He
left me in anger, nevertheless.

"A day or two afterwards, I received a note from him; addressing me as
'Sir,' and asking ironically if I had any obj