ow!"

"You are very ill," I said, putting some vinegar to his temples; "and
you are delirious. You don't know what you say."

"Yes, I do," he interrupted sharply, looking up at me. "I know very
well what I say. I brought it upon myself. It is my own choice. But I
couldn't--no, by heaven, I couldn't--accept the alternative. I couldn't
keep my faith to her. It was more than man could do."

I sat by the side of the bed, holding one of his burning hands in mine,
and wondering over his strange words. He lay still for some time, and
then, raising his eyes to me, said in a most plaintive voice--

"Why did she not give me warning sooner? Why did she wait until I had
learned to love her so?"

He repeated this question several times, rolling his feverish head from
side to side, and then he dropped into a troubled sleep. I crept out of
the room, and, having seen that he would be properly cared for, left
the house. His words, however, rang in my ears for days afterwards, and
assumed a deeper significance when taken with what was to come.

My friend, Barrington Cowles, had been away for his summer holidays, and
I had heard nothing of him for several months. When the winter session
came on, however, I received a telegram from him, asking me to secure
the old rooms in Northumberland Street for him, and telling me the train
by which he would arrive. I went down to meet him, and was delighted to
find him looking wonderfully hearty and well.

"By the way," he said suddenly, that night, as we sat in our chairs
by the fire, talking over the events of the holidays, "you have never
congratulated me yet!"

"On what, my boy?" I asked.

"What! Do you mean to say you have not heard of my engagement?"

"Engagement! No!" I answered. "However, I am delighted to hear it, and
congratulate you with all my heart."

"I wonder it didn't come to your ears," he said. "It was the queerest
thing. You remember that girl whom we both admired so much at the
Academy?"

"What!" I cried, with a vague feeling of apprehension at my heart. "You
don't mean to say that you are engaged to her?"

"I thought you would be surprised," he answered. "When I was staying
with an old aunt of mine in Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire, the Northcotts
happened to come there on a visit, and as we had mutual friends we soon
met. I found out that it was a false alarm about her being engaged, and
then--well, you know what it is when you are thrown into the society of
such a g