ied away, and it was long before she came to herself.

"You must be careful of your lady, my lord," said the doctor, after
he had seen her. "She has worn herself out for you, and will die some
day by your bedside. Never have I seen such tenderness, and such fond
devotion. She is the one who has saved you from death. She is now
giving herself to death to insure your recovery. Watch over her. Do
not let her sacrifice herself now. The time has come when she can
spare herself. Surely now, at last, there ought to be some peace and
rest for this noble-hearted, this gentle, this loving, this devoted
lady!"

And as all Hilda's devotion came before the mind of this
tender-hearted physician he had to wipe away his tears, and turn away
his head to conceal his emotion.

But his words sank deep into Lord Chetwynde's soul.

CHAPTER LVIII.

AN EXPLANATION.

Time passed away, and Lord Chetwynde steadily recovered. Hilda also
grew stronger, and something like her former vigor began to come
back. She was able, in spite of her own weakness, to keep up her
position as nurse; and when the doctor remonstrated she declared,
piteously, that Lord Chetwynde's bedside was the place where she
could gain the most benefit, and that to banish her from it would be
to doom her to death. Lord Chetwynde was perplexed by this devotion,
yet he would not have been human if he had not been affected by it.

As he recovered, the one question before his mind was, what should he
do? The business with reference to the payment of that money which
General Pomeroy had advanced was arranged before he left England. It
was this which had occupied so much of his thoughts. All was arranged
with his solicitors, and nothing remained for him to do. He had come
to the Continent without any well-defined plans, merely in search
after relaxation and distraction of mind. His eventful illness had
brought other things before him, the most prominent thing among which
was the extraordinary devotion of this woman, from whom he had been
planning an eternal separation. He could not now accuse her of
baseness. Whatever she might once have done she had surely atoned for
during those hours when she stood by his bedside till she herself
fell senseless, as he had seen her fall. It would have been but a
common generosity which would have attributed good motives to her;
and he could not help regarding her as full of devotion to himself.

Under these circumstances it became