pted to
escape. A strange thrall held him more than locks and bars, and he was
ready to sacrifice everything to stay there by Marion's side and fight
the grim Shade till it was defeated and he had won her gratitude and
love.

The great trouble Chester had to fight was the succession of strange
convulsive fits which attacked his patient, each of which seemed to have
snapped the frail thread which held the wounded man to life; but as they
passed off the flame flickered up again, and the struggle recommenced.

At last came the day when, hopeless and despondent, Chester bent over to
dress the wound, feeling that the struggle had been all in vain, and
that his skill was far less than he had believed.

The old housekeeper was waiting upon him, and Marion had, at his
request, gone to the other end of the room.

"You unnerve me," he whispered.

She looked at him reproachfully, and went away without a word, to seat
herself with her arm on the side of a chair, her hand supporting her
brow.

As a rule, the sufferer had made no sign during the opening and
rebandaging, but this time he winced sharply at every touch, and the old
housekeeper looked up questioningly.

"Is that a bad sign?" she whispered, with her face all drawn and ghastly
with fear.

"No; a sign of greater vitality," said Chester, quickly, and the next
minute he uttered a curious sibilation, for in removing the inner
bandage, his fingers came in contact with something angular and hard,
which he held up to the light and examined carefully.

A quick, sharp breathing at his ear made him start round, to find that
his every movement had been watched between the fingers of the hand
which covered the watcher's face, and she had hurried to his side.

"Worse?" she whispered faintly, too much exhausted now to display the
intense agony and excitement of the earlier days of their intercourse.

"No," he cried triumphantly. "Here is the cause--the enemy which has
been fighting against us so long, and produced, I believe, those
terrible convulsive attacks."

Marion looked at him wonderingly, and her lips parted, but no words
came. He read the question, though, in her eyes.

"I ought to have known, and found it out sooner," Chester said bitterly,
"and I feel that I am only a miserable pretender, after all. This piece
of jagged lead, broken from the conical bullet by the explosion; it has
remained behind causing all the trouble."

"Ah! Then he will recover now?"