n. Is there anything in the medicine that
the doctor doesn't know of?" Such was the horrible drama which now
perpetually acted itself in his mind. Hundreds and hundreds of times I
heard him repeat it, almost always in the same words. On other occasions
his thoughts wandered away to my desperate project of proving him to be
an innocent man. Sometimes he laughed at it. Sometimes he mourned
over it. Sometimes he devised cunning schemes for placing unsuspected
obstacles in my way. He was especially hard on me when he was inventing
his preventive stratagems--he cheerfully instructed the visionary people
who assisted him not to hesitate at offending or distressing me. "Never
mind if you make her angry; never mind if you make her cry. It's all for
her good; it's all to save the poor fool from dangers she doesn't dream
of. You mustn't pity her when she says she does it for my sake. See! she
is going to be insulted; she is going to be deceived; she is going to
disgrace herself without knowing it. Stop her! stop her!" It was weak of
me, I know; I ought to have kept the plain fact that he was out of his
senses always present to my mind: still it is true that my hours passed
at my husband's pillow were many of them hours of mortification and
misery of which he, poor dear, was the innocent and only cause.

The weeks passed; and he still hovered between life and death.

I kept no record of the time, and I cannot now recall the exact date on
which the first favorable change took place. I only remember that it was
toward sunrise on a fine winter morning when we were relieved at last of
our heavy burden of suspense. The surgeon happened to be by the bedside
when his patient awoke. The first thing he did, after looking at
Eustace, was to caution me by a sign to be silent and to keep out of
sight. My mother-in-law and I both knew what this meant. With full
hearts we thanked God together for giving us back the husband and the
son.

The same evening, being alone, we ventured to speak of the future--for
the first time since we had left home.

"The surgeon tells me," said Mrs. Macallan, "that Eustace is too weak to
be capable of bearing anything in the nature of a surprise for some days
to come. We have time to consider whether he is or is not to be told
that he owes his life as much to your care as to mine. Can you find it
in your heart to leave him, Valeria, now that God's mercy has restored
him to you and to me?"

"If I only consulted