no, in rapt whispers. "Do you hear me?
I love her! I love her! What does it matter now?"

"It would matter to her if you told her," rejoined Langholm. "It would
make her very unhappy."

"Then I need not tell her."

"You must not, indeed."

"Very well, I will not. It is a promise, and I keep my promises; it is
only when I make none--"

"That's all right," said Langholm, smiling.

"Then you will bring her to me?"

"I shall have to see her first, and the doctor."

"But you will do your best? That is why I am here, remember! I shall
tell the doctor so myself."

"I will do my best," said Langholm, as he rose.

A last whisper followed him to the door.

"Because I worship her!" were the words.

CHAPTER XXV

A POINT TO LANGHOLM

"I am glad you have come back," said Dr. Sedley with relief. "Of course
eventually he will require trained nursing, either here or somewhere
else; there is only one end to such a case, but it needn't come yet,
unless he has another hemorrhage. I understand you offered him your
cottage while you were away, but there was some muddle, and he came
before they were ready for him? It was like your kindness, my dear
fellow, only never you send another consumptive to the northeast coast
or anywhere near it! As to his seeing any ladies who like to look him
up, by all means, only one at a time, and they mustn't excite him. Your
return, for example, has been quite enough excitement for to-day, and I
should keep him quiet for the next twenty-four hours."

The doctor had called within an hour of the return of Langholm, who
repeated these stipulations upstairs, with his own undertaking in regard
to Rachel. He would write that night and beg her to call the following
day. No, he preferred writing to going to see her, and it took up far
less time. But he would write at once. And, as he went downstairs to do
so then and there, Langholm asked himself whether an honorable man could
meet the Steels again without reading to their faces the notes that he
had made in London and conned in the train.

This letter written, there was a small pile of them awaiting attention
on top of the old bureau; and Langholm sat glancing at proofs and
crumpling up press-cuttings until he needed a lamp. The letter that he
kept to the last looked like one of the rare applications for his
autograph which he was not too successful to welcome as straws showing
the wind of popular approval. In opening the envelope, howeve