ignating, as men instinctively do when it is near at hand.

"Yes, I am," Doctor Morgan answered. "Unless there is a great change in
the next few hours, there certainly will be cause for the gravest
anxiety."

Rendel was silent, his thoughts chasing each other tumultuously through
his brain.

"Does my wife know?" he said.

"I think she does," Morgan said. "I have not told her quite as clearly
as I have said it to you, but she knows how much care he needs and how
absolutely essential it is that he should be quiet. It is his one
chance. No talk, no news, no excitement."

"What has brought on this attack, do you think?" said Rendel, feeling as
if he were driven to ask the question.

"I can't tell," said Morgan. "He looked to me like a man who had been
excited about something. Do you know whether that is so?"

"Yes," said Rendel; "he got excited this morning about something that
was in the paper."

"Ah! by the way, yes, I don't wonder," said Morgan, who was an ardent
politician. "It was a most astonishing piece of news, certainly."

"It was, indeed," said Rendel, brought back for a moment to the
unendurable burthen he had been carrying about with him.

"The Imperialists are safe now to get in," said Morgan. "We look to you
to do great things some day," and without waiting for the polite
disclaimer which he took for granted would be Rendel's reply to his
remark, without seeing the swift look of keen suffering that swept over
Rendel's face, he hurried away.

Rendel was bowed down by an intolerable self-reproach. He could have
smiled at the thought that he had actually been seeking solace in the
idea that he had, at any rate, done a fine, a noble thing, that he had
done it for Rachel, that, if she ever knew it, she would know he had
sacrificed everything for her. And now, instead, how did his conduct
appear? How would it appear to her, since she knew but the outward
aspect of it? To her? Why, to himself, even, it almost appeared that
wishing to insist on screening himself at the expense of some one else,
he had, in defiance of her entreaties, appealed to her father, and
brought on an attack that might probably cause his death.

He stood for a moment as the door closed behind Morgan, and waited
irresolutely, with a half hope that Rachel would come downstairs to him.
But all was silent, desolate, forlorn; it was behind the shut door
upstairs that the strenuous issues were being fought out which were to
decide, in a