essie at last.

I cannot record that interview in words, nor can I now set down any
but the mere outline of our talk. My darling came down to meet me with
a quick flush of joy that she did not try to conceal. She was natural,
was herself, and only too glad, after the _contretemps_ in New York,
to see me again. She pitied me as though I had been a tired child
when I told her pathetically of my two journeys to Philadelphia, and
laughed outright at my interview with Dr. R----.

I was so sure of my ground. When I came to speak of the journey--_our_
journey--I knew I should prevail. It was a deep wound, and she shrank
from any talk about it. I had to be very gentle and tender before she
would listen to me at all.

But there was something else at work against me--what was
it?--something that I could neither see nor divine. And it was not
altogether made up of Aunt Sloman, I was sure.

"I cannot leave her now, Charlie. Dr. R---- wishes her to remain in
Philadelphia, so that he can watch her case. That settles it, Charlie:
I must stay with her."

What was there to be said? "Is there no one else, no one to take your
place?"

"Nobody; and I would not leave her even if there were."

Still, I was unsatisfied. A feeling of uneasiness took possession of
me. I seemed to read in Bessie's eyes that there was a thought between
us hidden out of sight. There is no clairvoyant like a lover. I could
see the shadow clearly enough, but whence, in her outer life, had the
shadow come? _Between_ us, surely, it could not be. Even her anxiety
for her aunt could not explain it: it was something concealed.

When at last I had to leave her, "So to-morrow is your last day?" she
said.

"No, not the last. I have changed my passage to the Saturday steamer."

The strange look came into her face again. Never before did blue eyes
wear such a look of scrutiny.

"Well, what is it?" I asked laughingly as I looked straight into her
eyes.

"The Saturday steamer," she said musingly--"the Algeria, isn't it? I
thought you were in a hurry?"

"It was my only chance to have you," I explained, and apparently the
argument was satisfactory enough.

With the saucy little upward toss with which she always dismissed a
subject, "Then it isn't good-bye to-night?" she said.

"Yes, for two days. I shall run over again on Thursday."

CHAPTER VII.

The two days passed, and the Thursday, and the Friday's parting,
harder for Bessie, as it seemed, than