ion of love was bestowed upon him;
and a sick-bed was made the scene of more touching happiness than he had
ever known in the proudest hours of his health and vigor. Could he
have seen his dear Nelly beside him, he had no more to wish for! To die
without pressing her to his heart, without acknowledging all that
he owed to her good counsels, was now his only sorrow; and if in the
stillness of the sick-room tears would flow heavily along his cheek, and
drop, one by one, on his pillow, this was their secret source.

The Count had himself written to Nelly. Kate, too, had despatched a
letter, telling of Frank's dangerous condition, and entreating her
presence; but no reply had been returned, and they already began to fear
that some mishap had occurred, and were obliged to frame all manner
of excuses for her absence. Meanwhile, as his strength declined, his
impatience increased; and his first question, as day broke, and his last
at night, were, "What tidings of Nelly?" All his faults and errors lay
like a load upon his heart, till he could pour out the confession to
his dear sister. The post-hour of each morning was a moment of intense
anxiety to him; and the blank look which met his eager glance was the
signal for a depression that weighed down his heart during the day. From
long dwelling on this source of sorrow, his mind grew painfully acute
as to all that bore upon it; and sometimes he fancied that his uncle and
Kate knew some dreadful fact of poor Nelly, and feared to communicate
it. More than once had it occurred to him that she was dead,--that she
had sunk, broken-hearted and deserted. He did not dare to whisper this
suspicion, but he tried to insinuate his fears about her in a hundred
ways. To his sickly fancy their frankness seemed dissimulation, and
the very grief they displayed he read as the misery of an unrevealed
calamity.

Kate, with all a woman's quickness, saw what was passing in his mind,
and tried her utmost to combat it; but all in vain. To no purpose did
she open her whole heart before him, telling of her own sad history and
its disappointments. In vain did she point to a bright future, when,
strong and in spirits, Frank should accompany her in search of Nelly,
through every glen and valley of the Tyrol. The impression of some
concealment was more powerful than all these, and he but heard them as
tales invented to amuse a sick-bed. The morbid sensibility of illness
gave a significance to every trivial in