n from them, and be whatever you said. Do you tell me
that?"

"No, indeed!" cried Clementina, with abhorrence. "Then I should despise
you."

He seemed not to heed her. He moved his lips as if he were talking to
himself, and he pleaded, "What shall we do?"

"We must try to think it out, and if we can't--if you can't let me give
up to you unless I do it for the same reason that you do; and if I can't
let you give up for me, and I know I could neva do that; then--we
mustn't!"

"Do you mean, we must part? Not see each other again?"

"What use would it be?"

"None," he owned. She had risen, and he stood up perforce. "May I--may I
come back to tell you?"

"Tell me what?" she asked.

"You are right! If I can't make it right, I won't come. But I won't say
good bye. I--can't."

She let him go, and Maddalena came in at the door. "Signorina," she said,
"the signora is not well. Shall I send for the doctor?"

"Yes, yes, Maddalena. Run!" cried Clementina, distractedly. She hurried
to Mrs. Lander's room, where she found her too sick for reproaches, for
anything but appeals for help and pity. The girl had not to wait for
Doctor Welwright's coming to understand that the attack was severer than
any before.

It lasted through the day, and she could see that he was troubled. It had
not followed upon any imprudeuce, as Mrs. Lander pathetically called
Clementina to witness when her pain had been so far quelled that she
could talk of her seizure.

He found her greatly weakened by it the next day, and he sat looking
thoughtfully at her before he said that she needed toning up. She caught
at the notion. "Yes, yes! That's what I need, docta! Toning up! That's
what I need."

He suggested, "How would you like to try the sea air, and the baths--at
Venice?"

"Oh, anything, anywhere, to get out of this dreadful hole! I ha'n't had a
well minute since I came. And Clementina," the sick woman whimpered, "is
so taken up all the time, he'a, that I can't get the right attention."

The doctor looked compassionately away from the girl, and said, "Well, we
must arrange about getting you off, then."

"But I want you should go with me, doctor, and see me settled all right.
You can, can't you? I sha'n't ca'e how much it costs?"

The doctor said gravely he thought he could manage it and he ignored the
long unconscious sigh of relief that Clementina drew.

In all her confusing anxieties for Mrs. Lander, Gregory remained at the
bottom of he