anity which called him to make his visits more frequent,
that her intervals of rest might be more numerous? How could he refuse
to sit at her bedside for a while in the evening, that she might be
quieted, instead of beginning the night sleepless and agitated?

The Doctor was a man of refined feeling as well as of principle, and he
had besides a sacred memory in the deepest heart of his affections. It
was the common belief in the village that he would never marry again,
but that his first and only love was buried in the grave of the wife
of his youth. It did not easily occur to him to suspect himself of any
weakness with regard to this patient of his, little more than a child
in years. It did not at once suggest itself to him that she, in her
strange, excited condition, might fasten her wandering thoughts upon
him, too far removed by his age, as it seemed, to strike the fancy of a
young girl under almost any conceivable conditions.

Thus it was that many of those beautiful summer evenings found him
sitting by his patient, the river rippling and singing beneath them, the
moon shining over them, sweet odors from the thickets on the banks
of the stream stealing in on the soft air that came through the open
window, and every time they were thus together, the subtile influence
which bound them to each other bringing them more and more into
inexplicable harmonies and almost spiritual identity.

But all this did not hinder the development of new and strange
conditions in Myrtle Hazard. Her will was losing its power. "I cannot
help it"--the hysteric motto--was her constant reply. It is not pleasant
to confess the truth, but she was rapidly undergoing a singular change
of her moral nature. She had been a truthful child. If she had kept
her secret about what she had found in the garret, she thought she was
exercising her rights, and she had never been obliged to tell any lies
about it.

But now she seemed to have lost the healthy instincts for veracity and
honesty. She feigned all sorts of odd symptoms, and showed a wonderful
degree of cunning in giving an appearance of truth to them. It became
next to impossible to tell what was real and what was simulated. At
one time she could not be touched ever so lightly without shrinking and
crying out. At another time she would squint, and again she would be
half paralyzed for a time. She would pretend to fast for days, living on
food she had concealed and took secretly in the night.