is well enough, but I am a broken-hearted man. Dr. Staines,
forget all that passed here at your last visit. All that is over. Thank
you for loving my poor girl as you do; give me your hand; God bless you.
Sir, I am sorry to say it is as a physician I invite you now. She is
ill, sir, very, very ill."

"Ill! and not tell me!"

"She kept it from you, my poor friend, not to distress you; and she
tried to keep it from me, but how could she? For two months she has
had some terrible complaint--it is destroying her. She is the ghost of
herself. Oh, my poor child! my child!"

The old man sobbed aloud. The young man stood trembling, and ashy pale.
Still, the habits of his profession, and the experience of dangers
overcome, together with a certain sense of power, kept him up; but,
above all, love and duty said, "Be firm." He asked for an outline of the
symptoms.

They alarmed him greatly.

"Let us lose no more time," said he. "I will see her at once."

"Do you object to my being present?"

"Of course not."

"Shall I tell you what Dr. Snell says it is, and Mr. Wyman?"

"By all means--after I have seen her."

This comforted Mr. Lusignan. He was to get an independent judgment, at
all events.

When they reached the top of the stairs, Dr. Staines paused and leaned
against the baluster. "Give me a moment," said he. "The patient must not
know how my heart is beating, and she must see nothing in my face but
what I choose her to see. Give me your hand once more, sir; let us both
control ourselves. Now announce me."

Mr. Lusignan opened the door, and said, with forced cheerfulness, "Dr.
Staines, my dear, come to give you the benefit of his skill."

She lay on the sofa, just as we left her. Only her bosom began to heave.

Then Christopher Staines drew himself up, and the majesty of knowledge
and love together seemed to dilate his noble frame. He fixed his eye on
that reclining, panting figure, and stepped lightly but firmly across
the room to know the worst, like a lion walking up to levelled lances.

CHAPTER III.

The young physician walked steadily up to his patient without taking his
eye off her, and drew a chair to her side.

Then she took down one hand--the left--and gave it him, averting her
face tenderly, and still covering it with her right; "For," said she to
herself, "I am such a fright now." This opportune reflection, and her
heaving bosom, proved that she at least felt herself something more
than his