t the
cost of untold anguish to this confiding girl upon whose gentle spirit
the very thought of crime would cast a deadly blight.

I must have flushed; certainly I showed some embarrassment, for her eyes
brightened with shy laughter as she whispered:

"You do not like to be praised,--another of your virtues. You have too
many. I have only one--I love my friends."

She did. One could see that love was life to her.

For an instant I trembled. How near I had been to wrecking this
gentle soul! Was she safe yet? I was not sure. My own doubts were not
satisfied. I awaited the papers with feverish impatience. They should
contain news. News of what? Ah, that was the question!

"You will let me see my mail this morning, will you not?" she asked, as
I busied myself about her.

"That is for the doctor to say," I smiled. "You are certainly better
this morning."

"It is so hard for me not to be able to read his letters, or to write a
word to relieve his anxiety."

Thus she told me her heart's secret, and unconsciously added another
burden to my already too heavy load.

I was on my way to give some orders about my patient's breakfast, when
Mr. Grey came into the sitting-room and met me face to face. He had a
newspaper in his hand and my heart stood still as I noted his altered
looks and disturbed manner. Were these due to anything he had found in
those columns? It was with difficulty that I kept my eyes from the paper
which he held in such a manner as to disclose its glaring head-lines.
These I dared not read with his eyes fixed on mine.

"How is Miss Grey? How is my daughter?" he asked in great haste and
uneasiness. "Is she better this morning, or--worse?"

"Better," I assured him, and was greatly astonished to see his brow
instantly clear.

"Really?" he asked. "You really consider her better? The doctors say
so' but I have not very much faith in doctors in a case like this," he
added.

"I have seen no reason to distrust them," I protested. "Miss Grey's
illness, while severe, does not appear to be of an alarming nature. But
then I have had very little experience out of the hospital. I am young
yet, Mr. Grey."

He looked as if he quite agreed with me in this estimate of myself, and,
with a brow still clouded, passed into his daughter's room, the paper
in his hand. Before I joined them I found and scanned another journal.
Expecting great things, I was both surprised and disappointed to find
only a small paragraph d