er health was perfectly
established, and she had been for years at the head of the Springton
Academy. Doctor Eben rarely saw her; but when he did her manner had
the same child-like docility and affectionate gratitude that had
characterized it when she was seventeen. She had never ceased to feel
that she owed her life, and more than her life, to him: how much more
she felt, Dr. Eben had never dreamed until this day. When he told her
that he was going to Europe, she turned pale, but said earnestly:

"Oh, I am very glad! you have needed the change so much. How long will
you stay?"

"I don't know, Rachel," he replied sadly. "Perhaps all the rest of my
life. I have done my best to live here; but I can't. It's no use: I
can't bear it. I have sold the place."

Rachel's lips parted, but she did not speak; her face flushed scarlet,
then turned white; and, without a moment's warning or possibility
of staying the tears, she buried her face in her hands, and wept
convulsively. In the same instant, a magnetic sense of all that this
grief meant thrilled through Doctor Eben's every nerve. No such thought
had ever crossed his mind before. Rachel had never been to him any thing
but the "child" he had first called her. Very reverently seeking now to
shield her womanhood from any after pain of fear, lest she might have
betrayed her secret, he said:

"Why, my child! you must not feel so badly about it. I ought not to have
spoken so. Of course, you must know that my life has been a very lonely
one, and always must be. But I should not give up and go away, simply
for that. I am not well, and I am quite sure that I need several years
of a milder climate. I dare say I shall be home-sick, and come back
after all."

Rachel lifted her eyes and looked steadily in his. Her tears stopped.
The old clairvoyant gaze, which he had not seen on her face for many
years, returned.

"No. You will never come back," she said slowly. Then, as one speaking
in a dream, she said still more slowly, and uttering each word with
difficulty and emphasis:

"I--do--not--believe--your--wife--is--dead." Much shocked, and thinking
that these words were merely the utterance of an hysterical excitement,
Dr. Eben replied:

"Not to me, dear child; she never will be: but you must not let yourself
be excited in this way. You will be ill. I must be your doctor again and
prescribe for you."

Rachel continued to watch him, with the same bright and unflinching
gaze. He t