her terrible blow that I am
crying, it is because I have lost him--I see it--I have lost him!"

Her father became frightened. What in the world could she mean by
talking about the man being gone from her? He had never heard of a
woman's sympathy extending to such limits as caused her to feel a
personal deprivation when death had taken another woman's husband.

"Oh, I am selfish--cruel--heartless!" sobbed Phyllis. "I thought of
myself, not of her. He is hers; he will be given back to her as she
prayed--she prayed so to me before you appeared at the door, papa. 'Give
him back to me! Give him back to me!' that was her prayer."

"My dearest child, you must not talk that way," said the father. "Come,
Phyllis, your strength has been overtaxed. You must go to bed and try to
sleep."

She still moaned about her cruelty--her selfishness, until the doctor
who had been sent for and had been with Ella in her room, appeared in
order to let them know that Mrs. Linton had regained consciousness. The
blow had, of course, been a terrible one: but she was young, and Nature
would soon reassert herself, he declared, whatever he meant by that. He
thought it strange, he said, that Mrs. Linton had not been aware of
her husband's weakness. To him, the physician, the condition of the
unfortunate gentleman had been apparent from the first moment he had
seen him. He had expected to hear of his death any day. He concluded by
advising Phyllis to go to bed and have as long a sleep as possible.
He would return in the morning and see if Mrs. Linton might travel to
London.

Phyllis went to her room, and her father went to the one which had been
prepared for him. For a minute or two he remained thoughtful. What could
his daughter have meant by those self-accusations? After a short time,
however, he smiled. The poor thing had been upset by the shocking news
of the death of the husband of her dearest friend. She was sympathetic
to quite a phenomenal degree. That sympathy which felt her friend's loss
as though it were wholly her own was certainly not to be met with every
day.

In the morning Phyllis showed traces of having spent a bad night. But
she spoke rationally and not in the wild way in which she had spoken
before retiring, and her father felt that there was no need for him to
be uneasy in regard to her condition. He allowed her to go to the side
of her friend, Ella, and as he was leaving them together in each other's
arms, he heard Ella say: