when the disease was consuming your very vitals,--not when a
perpetual fever racked your brain and boiled in your blood. You'd take
little heed of what is called exposure then. The cry of your heart would
be, 'Save me! save me!'" As she spoke, her voice grew louder and wilder,
till it became almost a shriek, and, as she ended, she lay back, flushed
and panting, in her chair.

"You have made her quite nervous, Mr. Dunn," said Lady Lackington, as
she arose and fanned her.

"Oh, no. It's nothing. Just let me have a little fresh air,--on the
terrace. Will you give me your arm?" said Lady Grace, faintly. And Dunn
assisted her as she arose and walked out. "How very delicious this is!"
said she, as she leaned over the balcony, and gazed down upon the placid
water, streaked with long lines of starlight. "I conclude," said she,
after a little pause, "that scenes like this--moments as peacefully
tranquil--are as dear to you, hard-worked men of the world, as they
are to the wearied hearts of us poor women, all whose ambitions are so
humble in comparison."

"We are all of us striving for the same goal, I believe," said
he,--"this same search after happiness, the source of so much misery!"

"You are not married, I believe?" said she, in an accent whose very
softness had a tone of friendship.

"No; I am as much alone in the world as one well can be," rejoined he,
sorrowfully.

"And have you gone through life without ever meeting one with whom
you would have been content to make partnership,--taking her, as those
solemn words say, 'for better, for worse'?"

"They are solemn words," said he, evading her question; "for they pledge
that for which it is so hard to promise,--the changeful moods which time
and years bring over us. Which of us at twenty can say what he will be
at thirty,--still less at fifty? The world makes us many things we never
meant to be."

[Illustration: 137]

"So, then, you are not happy?" said she, in the same low voice.

"I have not said so much," said he, smiling sadly; "are you?"

"Can you ask me? Is not the very confidence wherewith I treat
you--strangers as we were an hour back to each other--the best evidence
that it is from the very depth of my misery I appeal to you?"

"Make no rash confidences, Lady Grace," said he, seriously. "They who
tell of their heart's sorrows to the world are like those who count
their gold before robbers. I have seen a great deal of life, and the
best philosophy I ha