ain; but one of his earliest sayings was, "Louder, please, I can't
hear. When does she come?"

Mrs. Poynsett raised her voice, Anne tried; but he frowned and
sighed, and only when Miles uttered a sea-captain's call close to
his ear, did he smile comprehension, adding, "Were you shouting?" a
fact only too evident to those around.

"Then I'm deaf," he said. And Anne wrote and set before him, "We
hope it will pass as you get better." He looked grateful, but there
was little more communication, for his eyes and head were still
weak, and signs and looks were the chief currency; however, Julius
met Eleonora after morning service, to beg her to renew her visit,
after having first prepared her for what she would find. Eleonora
was much distressed; then paused a minute, and said, "It does him
good to see me?"

"It seems to be the one thing that keeps him up," said Julius,
surprised at the question.

"O, yes! I can't--I could not stay away," she said. "It is all so
wrong together; yet this last time cannot hurt!"

"Last time?"

"Yes; did you not know that papa has set his heart on going to
London to-morrow? Yes, early to-morrow. And it will be for ever.
We shall never see Sirenwood again."

She stood still, almost bent with the agony of suppressed grief.

"I am very sorry; but I do not wonder he wishes for change."

"He has been in an agony to go these three days. It was all I could
do to get him to stay to-day. You don't think it will do Frank
harm? Then I would stay, if I took lodgings in the village; but
otherwise--poor papa--I think it is my duty--and he can't do without
me."

"I think Frank is quite capable of understanding that you are forced
to go, and that he need not be the worse for it."

"And then," she lowered her voice, "it does a little reconcile me
that I don't think we ought to go further into it till we can
understand. I did make that dreadful vow. I know I ought not now;
but still I did, in so many words."

"You mean against a gambler?"

"If it had only been against a gambler; but I was stung, and wanted
to guard myself, and made it against any one who had ever betted!
If I go on, I must break it, you see, and if I do might it not bring
mischief on him? I don't even feel as if it were _true_ to have
come to him on Friday, and now--yet they said it was the only chance
for his life."

"Yes, I think it saved him then, and to disappoint him now might
quite possibly bring a relapse,"