nce on the way to health. She looked at his changing color, she
listened to his hesitating words, with every sensitive perception of her
sex and age quickened to seize intuitively on the truth. In the moment
when he looked away from her, she gently took her hand from him, and
turned her head aside on the pillow. "_Can_ it be?" she thought, with
a flutter of delicious fear at her heart, with a glow of delicious
confusion burning on her cheeks. "_Can_ it be?"

The doctor made another sign to Kirke. He understood it, and rose
immediately. The momentary discomposure in his face and manner had both
disappeared. He was satisfied in his own mind that he had successfully
kept his secret, and in the relief of feeling that conviction he had
become himself again.

"Good-by till to-morrow," he said, as he left the room.

"Good-by," she answered, softly, without looking at him.

Mr. Merrick took the chair which Kirke had resigned, and laid his hand
on her pulse. "Just what I feared," remarked the doctor; "too quick by
half."

She petulantly snatched away her wrist. "Don't!" she said, shrinking
from him. "Pray don't touch me!"

Mr. Merrick good-humoredly gave up his place to the nurse. "I'll return
in half an hour," he whispered, "and carry her back to bed. Don't let
her talk. Show her the pictures in the newspaper, and keep her quiet in
that way."

When the doctor returned, the nurse reported that the newspaper had not
been wanted. The patient's conduct had been exemplary. She had not been
at all restless, and she had never spoken a word.

The days passed, and the time grew longer and longer which the doctor
allowed her to spend in the front room. She was soon able to dispense
with the bed on the sofa--she could be dressed, and could sit up,
supported by pillows, in an arm-chair. Her hours of emancipation from
the bedroom represented the great daily event of her life. They were the
hours she passed in Kirke's society.

She had a double interest in him now--her interest in the man whose
protecting care had saved her reason and her life; her interest in the
man whose heart's deepest secret she had surprised. Little by little
they grew as easy and familiar with each other as old friends; little by
little she presumed on all her privileges, and wound her way unsuspected
into the most intimate knowledge of his nature.

Her questions were endless. Everything that he could tell her of himself
and his life she drew from him de