George Manville Fenn (continued 2)

So North thought.

“I’ll go up and sit with her now, Hartley,” she said quickly, and turned to leave the room, when Horace North’s eyes became fixed upon a white mark at the back of the young girl’s sleeve—a mark which looked exactly as if her arm had been held by some one wearing a well pipe-clayed glove.

The next moment the young girl, the dark sleeve, and the white mark had passed from Horace North’s sight, and soon after from his mind.

Chapter Ten.

The Doctor Prescribes.

“There, my dear, I shall give you up now,” said North one day, about three months after the accident. “Ah! you look bad!”

Mary was downstairs, lying back in an easy-chair, and she coloured slightly, and there was a faint gathering of wrinkles on her white forehead at his easy-going, paternal way.

“Yes,” said Mary. “Do advise him, doctor. He is far from well.”

“Yes; he’s a bad colour,” said North bluffly.

“Hadn’t you better suggest that I should be painted?” said the curate tartly.

“Another bad sign,” said North, with a good-tempered look at Mary. “He talks to his old friend in that way. Bile, Miss Salis—bile.”

“It’s bother, not bile,” cried the curate sharply. “I beg your pardon, old fellow.”

“Granted. But what’s the matter?”

“Everything. I’m troubled about the church matters. The squire is rector’s churchwarden, and somehow we don’t get on.”

“That’s a wonder,” said the doctor drily.

“Then, I’m in trouble with the rector.”

“Why, what’s he got to say for himself? He’s nearly always in London, so as to be within reach of his club. It isn’t time for him to come down and give us another of his sermons, is it?”

“No. It isn’t about that.”

“What then?”

“Oh! nothing.”

“Come, out with it!”

The curate glanced at Mary, who shook her head slightly, but he went on.

“The fact is, old fellow, May takes upon himself to write me most unpleasant, insolent letters. He learns from some mischief-making body that Leo hunts, and I never hear the last of it.”

“Humph! Why not put a stop to it, and sell the mare?”

The curate shook his head.

“I don’t like her,” said the doctor. “She’ll be getting your sister into some fresh scrape.”

“Don’t talk like that, man. She has done mischief enough. What nonsense! Leo can do anything she likes with her now.”

“Glad to hear it; and now I want to do what I like with you.”

“So you do,” said the curate good-humouredly.

“Not quite. You’re horribly snappish. Sure sign of being a little out of order. I shall prescribe for you.”

“Do,” said Salis grimly, “and I’ll take the medicine and poison some one else with it.”

“No need; plenty of people are doing that. Now, look here, you worry yourself too much about everyday matters.”

“Nonsense!”

“It is quite true, Mr North,” said Mary, smiling.

“There, sir, you hear. Then you don’t take enough exercise.”

“Indeed, but I do. I spend half my time going about.”

“Visiting the poor,” cried the doctor. “Harassing yourself with other folks’ troubles, and listening to endless stories of worry.”

“Yes, Mr North, quite true.”

“What nonsense, Mary!” cried the curate piteously. “I must do my duty.”

“Of course, my dear sir, so do it; but don’t overdo it. Recipe—”

“I won’t take it,” said the curate.

“Miss Salis here shall make you, sir. Recipe: ‘One good cigar or two pipes of bird’s-eye per diem, and three hours to be spent in gardening or fishing every day.’”

Mary’s eyes brightened in forgetfulness of her own trouble as she rejoiced in the advice given to her brother.

“It’s all rubbish, North. I’ve no time to give to fishing or gardening. As to the cigar, I might manage that.”

“Pills no use without the draught,” said the doctor.

“But you a doctor, and prescribe tobacco—a poison!”

“Does people good to poison them a little when they’re out of order.”

“But May grumbles as it is, and is never satisfied. What will he say if he hears of my smoking, and pottering about with a fishing-rod?”

“Tell May to mind his points at whist and leave us alone. There, I must be off. Take my advice, too, about the mare. I shall always hate her for the injury she did to poor Miss Salis here. Good-bye, both of you.”

“Stop a minute,” said the curate. “What about yourself?”

“Well, what about myself?”

“The great idea—the crotchet—the cr—”

“Well, say it—the craze, man! Every inventor is considered a lunatic till his invention works. Wait, my dear fellow—wait. I may astonish you yet. Good-bye, Miss Salis.”

He shook hands, and left the Rectory-parlour with Salis, the saddle creaking loudly as he mounted and then rode away.

“Good fellow, Horace,” sighed the curate, “but only fit for a West End practice, among people with plenty of time and money. I fancy myself smoking on the river bank, throwing flies and pitching in ground bait. It’s absurd!”

“Poor Miss Salis!” said Mary to herself, as she repeated the doctor’s sympathetic, pitying words; and it was forced upon her more and more plainly in what light he regarded her. She was his patient—nothing more. No; this was unjust, for he always treated her most warmly—as a friend—almost as a sister.

But her old hopes and aspirations seemed to be dead for ever, without promise of revival.

At that moment the curate returned.

“Poor Leo!” he said. “I could not do that,” as he again thought of how attached she had become to the mare, and how the handsome little creature had seemed to divert her attention from the past.

“It would not do, Mary,” he said aloud. “Poor girl! I seem to have been very hard upon her about Tom Candlish, and it would be too bad to deprive her of the mare.”

“She appears very fond of it,” said Mary gravely.

“And the more fond she gets of it the less she thinks about anything else, eh?” Mary was silent.

“She never mentions him to you now?”

“No, Hartley.”

“Hah! That’s a good job. It was hard work and painful; but I nipped that in the bud.”

Mary was silent, and looked at her brother uneasily.

“Well, what is it, dear? Not comfortable?”

“Yes, Hartley, I am quite comfortable,” said Mary, smiling sadly.

“But you looked at me in a peculiar way. You don’t believe that Leo thinks about him now?”

“I don’t know, Hartley. I am not sure.”

“Oh! but I am. It’s all right, my dear. The girl’s ideas are quite changed now, and I am beginning to be hopeful that she thinks a little of North. Why, my dear Mary, how ghastly pale you do look to-day. Are you worse?”

“No, no, dear; indeed no. I—I fancy I am getting better.”

“That’s right; but I am trespassing on you by talking too much. How thoughtless man can be!”

“And how thoughtful,” said Mary, as she took his hand in hers, and held it to her cheek. “Don’t reproach yourself, Hartley; you give me pain.”

The curate bent down and kissed her, and she leaned back and closed her eyes, so that her brother should not see how they were suffused with tears.

“Patience,” she said softly; “give me patience to be unselfish, and bear my bitter lot.”

Chapter Eleven.

Jonadab Moredock Sees a Ghost.

Moredock was better by the next Saturday, and he got up with the intention of having a good long day at the church.

“Must keep friends with the doctor,” he muttered. “Can’t afford to die yet. So much to do first.”

He looked up at his clock, and the clock’s sallow round face looked down at him, pointing out how time was getting on, and kept on its monotonous chick chack, as the old pendulum swung from side to side.

“Mornin’, old Moredock,” cried a cheery rustic voice, and a rough, fair, curly head was thrust in at the doorway, the owner of the body keeping it carefully outside, as he held in at arm’s length an old patched boot, which had evidently been soaked in water to allow for a series of great stitches to be put into the upper leather.

For the moment it seemed as if Moredock was some grim old idol, carved in yellowish-brown wood, as he sat in his chair in the middle of his sanctuary, and the new comer was an idolater, bringing him a peace offering; but the idea died away as the old man snarled out:

“Mornin’, young Chegg. So you’ve brought it at last.”

“At last! Well, I haven’t had it so very long. Sixpence.”

“Sixpence! What, for sewing up that crack?”

“Yes, and cheap, too. Why, I’d ha’ charged parson a shilling. How are you?”

“How am I? Ah! that’s it, is it? That’s what you’ve come for. Not dead yet, Joe Chegg, and they don’t want another clerk and saxton for the old church.”

“Nay—”

“Hold your tongue when I’m speaking. Think I don’t know you. Want to step in my shoes, do you? Want to marry my grandchild Dally, do you? Well, you’re not going to while I’m alive, and I’m going to live another ten year.”

“That’s all right,” said the young man, rubbing his face with a hard hand, much tanned, and coated with wax. “I don’t want you to die.”

“Yes, you do,” cried the old man fiercely. “I see you looking me up and down, and taking my measure. Think you’re going to dig my grave, do you? Well, you’re not going to these ten years to come; and p’r’aps I shall dig yours first, Joe Chegg; p’r’aps I shall dig yours.”

It was a cool morning, in the hunting season, but the young man perspired, and shifted uneasily from foot to foot.

“Oh! I don’t know, Mr Moredock, sir,” he muttered awkwardly.

“Then I do,” cried the old sexton, dragging his hand out of his trousers’ pocket. “There’s a fourpenny piece. Quite enough for your job, and I tell you now as I mean to tell you ten year hence, you ain’t going to be saxton o’ Dook’s Hampton while Jonadab Moredock’s alive, so be off.”

“I don’t want nothing but what’s friendly like, Mr Moredock, sir. I thought as when you was out o’ sorts I might be a kind o’ depitty like, to ring the bells for you, and dig a grave for you.”

“Ah!” shouted the old man, “that’s it—that’s what Parson Salis calls showing the cloven hoof. You said it, and you can’t take it back. You’d like to dig a grave for me.”

“I meant to put some one else in,” said the young man, staring.

“No, you didn’t; you meant to put me in; but I’ll live to spite you. I’ll ring my own bells, and say my own amens and ’sponses, and dig my own graves; and if you marry Dally Watlock, not a penny does she have o’ my money, and I’ll burn the cottage down.”

The young man wiped his forehead and backed slowly towards the door, just inside which he had been standing during the latter part of the interview, and as soon as he was outside he hurried away.

“Not going to die yet,” muttered the old man. “I can’t and won’t die yet. I’ll let ’em see. Doctor said a man’s no business to die till he’s quite wore out, and I’m not wore out yet—nothing like. I’ll show ’em. Only wish somebody would die, and I’d show ’em. Give up, indeed!”

A sharp fit of coughing interrupted the old man, and left him so exhausted that he took his seat and leaned back, staring at the fire, and only moving at times to put on a lump of coal, till towards evening, when he rose and made himself some tea. Then, putting a piece of candle loose in his pocket, with happy indifference to the fact that it was not wax, he took a box of matches from the mantelpiece and thrust them in with the candle, as he believed, felt in another pocket for his key, and trudged off to the church to put things in order for the next day’s service.

Moredock reached the old lych gate in the dark autumnal evening, passed through, and ascended the path, which looked like a cutting in the churchyard, six hundred years of interments having raised the ground till it formed a bank, while the church itself seemed to have become sunken.

Half-way up he struck off along a narrower path which curved round to the old iron-studded door in the tower, a door whose hinges resembled Norse runes, so twisted and twined was the iron-work.

The heavy old key was inserted, turned, and taken out, and as the door yielded to pressure the key was inserted on the other side. The next minute the door was closed and locked, and Moredock stood in the old tower, fumbling in the darkness for the horn lantern which stood in a stone niche.

The lantern was found, opened, and the piece of candle inserted in the socket. The next thing was a search for the matches, which, however, were not found, for they were reposing on the rug in the sexton’s cottage.

And there he stood fumbling and muttering for some minutes in the total darkness, till, believing that the matches must have been left behind, he uttered a loud grunt, and prepared to do without.

It was no great difficulty; for, as he stood in the basement of the old square tower, with the five bells high above his head, and the ropes hanging therefrom, he knew that to his right ran the rickety old flight of stairs leading to the different floors and the leads of the tower; on his left his tools leaning against the stone wall, and the great cupboard in which, in company with planks and ropes, were sundry grisly-looking relics, dug up from time to time, but never seen by any one but himself; behind him was the door by which he had entered, and facing him the lancet-shaped little opening through the tower wall, leading into the west end of the church.

It was dark enough where he next stood, for he was beneath the loft where the school children and the singers sat on Sundays; but in front of him, dimly seen by the great east window being beyond it, and looking like an uncouth, dwarf, one-legged monster, was the massive stone font, round which he passed slowly, and then walked straight along the centre aisle towards the tomb-encumbered chancel, cut off by its antique oaken screen.

His steps were hushed by the matting, and the darkness, in spite of the windows on either side, was intense behind, though above the old deal unpainted pews there seemed to float a dim haze, as if from the great east window, as he made his way towards the door on the north side of the chancel.

Moredock could have walked swiftly along the church in the dark, and he had often done so when he was younger. He could recall the time, too, when he had whistled softly as he went about dusting cushions and rearranging hassocks and matting. But now he had no breath left for whistling, and he walked—almost shuffled—along slowly towards the vestry, where he had nothing to do but give the gown and surplice a shake and hang them up again, and refill the large water-bottle from Gumley’s pump, which drew water from a well in remarkably close proximity to the churchyard.

The big pews shut him in right and left, so that had he been visible to any one at a distance, it would have seemed as if a head and shoulders were gliding along the church; but there was no one to see him. All the same, though, Moredock could see, and as well as was possible he saw something which made him stop short just half-way between the font and the eagle lectern, to shade his eyes and gaze towards the chancel.

He did not believe in ghosts. He had been night and day in that old church too many hundred times to be scared at anything—at least so he thought. But perhaps owing to the fact that he had been ill, he was ready to be weak and nervous, and hence it was that he stood as if sealed to the spot, gazing at a dimly seen head, draped in long folds like that of the lady on the old mural slab on the south wall by the door. It was grey and dim as that always seemed in its recess, and as it glided along the south aisle it disappeared behind a pillar, all so dimly seen as to be next to invisible, and then reappeared in front of the pulpit, passed through the screen into the chancel, where it was seen a trifle more plainly; and then, as the old man gazed, the draped head grew for a moment more distinct, and then seemed to melt into thin air.

Chapter Twelve.

The Sexton’s Fetch.

“Why, Moredock, you are not going to tell me that you believe in ghosts?”

“No, doctor, for I don’t; and I’ve been in that church and the vaults sometimes all night.”

“All night, eh? What for, eh?”

“That’s my business, doctor. P’r’aps I was on the look out for body-snatchers; but I’ve been there all night, and no ghosts never troubled me.”

“And yet here you are, all shivering and nervous—too ill to attend service this morning; and you tell me you saw something in the church last night.”

“Ay, and so I did, doctor. I s’pose I swownded away, I was took so bad; and must have laid there for hours before I got up and crawled home; and Parson Salis must be in a fine taking this morning, for there’s nothing done in the church.”

“Oh! never mind that, Moredock; Mr Salis is sorry you are ill. He’s a good fellow, and he sent me on this morning. You’re a bit nervous and shaken at what you fancied you saw. Come, Moredock, old man, I’m a doctor, and you’re a sexton, and we’re too much men of the world—we’ve seen and known too much—to be afraid of ghosts, eh?”

“Ghosts! Sperits! I’m afraid of no ghosts, doctor; but I see that thing o’ Saturday night.”

“Thought you saw it, old chap!”

“Nay, doctor, I saw it; and that’s what scares me.”

“Pooh! You scared at something you saw—a hollow turnip and a sheet! A trick played by some scamp in the village.”

“Trick played? Nay, doctor; there isn’t a lad in the village dare do it. I know ’em. I aren’t scared at the thing I saw. It’s at what it means.”

“What it means! Then, what does it mean?”

“Notice to quit this here earthly habitation, as parson calls it, doctor. That’s what it means.”

“Rubbish!”

“Ah! you say that to hide your bad work, doctor, and because you know you arn’t done your duty by me.”

“Why, you ungrateful old humbug! I’ve done no end for you. Haven’t I gone on oiling your confounded old hinges for years past, to keep you from dropping off, rusted out?”

“Ah! I don’t say anything again that, doctor; but you’ve always thought me a poor man, and you’ve treated me like a poor man—exactly like. If you’d thought me well off, and you could send me in a big bill, you’d have had me in such condition that I shouldn’t have seen my fetch last night.”

“Seen your grandmother, man.”

“Ay, you may laugh, doctor; but what have you told me over and over again? ‘Moredock,’ says you, ‘a healthy man’s no business to die till he’s quite worn out.’ And ‘What age will that be, doctor?’ says I. ‘Oh! at any age,’ says you; and here am I, a hale, hearty man, only a little more’n ninety, and last night I see my fetch.”

“But you’re not a hale, hearty man, Moredock.”

“Tchah! Whatcher talking about? Why, I’d ’bout made up my mind to be married again.”

“You? Married? Why, even I don’t think of such a thing.”

“You? No,” said the old man, contemptuously. “You’re not half the man I’ve been. My son’s gal—Dally Watlock’s ’fended me, and if she don’t mind she’ll lose my bit o’ money.”

“You take my advice, Moredock, and don’t marry.”

“Shan’t leave you nothing, if I don’t marry, doctor,” said the old man, with a cunning leer; “and you needn’t send in no bills because you’ve found out I’ve got a bit saved up.”

“Why, you wicked old ruffian, I suppose you’ve scraped together a few pounds by trafficking in old bones, and of what you’ve robbed the church.”

“Never you mind, doctor, how I got it, or how much it is.”

“I don’t; but just you be wise, sir. You’re not going to marry again, and you’re going to leave your money to your grandchild.”

“Eh? What—what? Do you want to marry her?”

“No, I don’t, Moredock; but if you don’t behave yourself, hang me if I come and doctor you any more. You may send over to King’s Hampton for Dr Wellby, or die if you like: I won’t try and save you.”

“No, no, no; don’t talk like that, doctor—don’t talk like that,” whimpered the old man; “just now, too, when I’m so shook.”

“Then don’t you talk about disinheriting your poor grandchild. Come, hold up, Moredock! I didn’t mean it. There’s nothing much the matter.”

“Ah! but there is, doctor. I saw my fetch last night.”

“No, you did not. You were not strong enough to go up to the church, and you fancied you saw something.”

“I see it.”

“Well, suppose you did. Some one had gone into the church to fetch a hymn-book, or put in a new cushion.”

“Nobody couldn’t, but me and parson, and squire and you. I see it, and it was my fetch.”

“No, no, old fellow; you’re mistaken. You were in the dark, and your head weak.”

“I see it, and it was my fetch, doctor.”

“Very well, then, Moredock, it was your fetch; but we won’t let it fetch you for some years to come. What do you say to that?”

“Ah! now you’re talking sensible, doctor,” cried the old man, brightening up. “Look here, doctor, you do what’s right by me, and let me have the best o’ stuff—good physic, you know—and there isn’t anything I won’t do for you. A skull, or a bone of any kind, or a whole set, or—”

“There, that will do, Moredock. I’ll do my duty by you, and I don’t want any reward.”

“No, you don’t. You’re a good fellow, doctor; and you do understand my complaint, don’t you?”

“Yes, thoroughly. There, sit back in your chair, and keep quiet. Mr Salis is coming in to see you by-and-by.”

“Nay, nay, nay! I don’t want he. It makes a man feel as if he’s very bad when parson comes to see him.”

“Why, I’m sure he’s a thoroughly good friend to you, old fellow.”

“Oh! yes, he’s right enough; but as soon as ever he comes in this here room, he’ll begin talking to me about what a sinner I’ve been.”

“Well, quite right, too.”

“Maybe, doctor, maybe,” said the old man, bursting into a loud cachinnation; “but he don’t know everything, doctor, do he? If he did, he’d lay it on thicker; and he wouldn’t be quite so friendly with you.”

“Come, come, Moredock,” said the doctor, laughing. “Suppose we leave professional secrets alone, eh?”

“Ay, ay, doctor, we will. I don’t forget what you’ve told me; but do go and tell parson I’m a deal better, and that he needn’t come.”

“Why? A visit won’t do you any harm.”

“Maybe not, doctor—p’r’aps not; but as soon as he comes he’ll want to read me a chapter and then pray over me; and I’m that soaked with it all, after these many years, that I haven’t room for no more.”

“But, Moredock—”

“There, it’s of no use for you to talk. Think I don’t know! Why, I know more chapters and bits of the sarvice by heart than half-a-dozen parsons.”

“Ah, well! I’ll send you a bottle of mixture as soon as I get home, so sit up and make yourself comfortable.”

“May I smoke my pipe, doctor?”

“Oh, yes, as long as you like, man. You’re not bad; and take my advice: just you forget all about your fetch, as you call it, and don’t go to the church any more in the dark.”

Chapter Thirteen.

After Church.

The doctor left the sexton’s cottage, thinking deeply on the way in which the brain is affected by the weakness of the body.

“Poor old fellow!” he muttered; “nearly a hundred years old, and clinging to life more tightly than ever. Believes he saw something, of course. Not fit to go out alone. But he’ll pull round, and perhaps last for years. Wonderful constitution, but also an exemplification of my pet theory. Humph! coming out of church. Well, I must meet ’em, I suppose. Hallo! what’s going to happen? Has Salis converted the pair of reprobates? Morning, Squire; morning, Mr Candlish.”

He shook hands—professionally, as he called it—with the young squire and his brother, who were just out of church, and walked slowly on with them, discussing the hunt, election matters, and the state of the country.

“Why don’t you hunt more, doctor?” said the squire, a florid, fine-looking man, singularly like his brother, but more athletic of build.

“Want of time,” said the doctor good-humouredly. “Too many irons in the fire.”

“You work too hard. But look here—don’t be offended; I’ve always a spare mount or two when you are disposed for a gallop.”

“Thanks; I’ll ask one of these days—which never come,” the doctor added to himself. “And now, good-day.”

“No, no; come on, and have a bit of dinner with us—early dinner to-day.”

“Thanks—no; I’ve a patient or two to see, and I want a word with the parson.”

“We don’t,” said the squire; “eh, Tom? We’ve had ours.”

Tom Candlish scowled.

“Well, always glad to see you, doctor—non-professionally,” said the squire; and they went on, while North turned back to meet Salis, wondering why Tom Candlish had condescended to come to church.

“To stare at Leo, I’ll be sworn, and Salis must have felt it. I’ll be bound to say he made a dozen mistakes in the service this morning through that fellow coming. And, as for the squire—that young man drinks, and he had better look out, or Moredock will have a grand funeral to attend.”

“Good morning, doctor. Were you coming to see me?”

“Ah, Mrs Berens! I beg your pardon; I didn’t see you.”

“No, doctor, you never do seem to see me. You forget your most anxious patients,” said the lady pathetically.

“But, really, you did not send me word.”

“No, I did not send you word. I lived in hope of your coming.”

“Thank goodness!” thought the doctor. “This woman is growing dangerous.”

His pious ejaculation was consequent upon the fact that his friend, the curate, was approaching in company with Leo.

Mrs Berens became aware of the fact at the same time, and though she uttered no pious ejaculation, she was equally pleased, for two reasons.

The first was that through the past two hours she had been seated in the same building with Leo Salis; the pews were high, and Leo could only have seen the top of her bonnet, whereas the handsome widow did not go to great expense for the most fashionable modes et robes, as the dressmakers express it, for nothing. The most elegant head-gear, though it may afford some satisfaction to the wearer, is hardly worth wearing, unless it be envied by those of the one sex and admired by the other. This encounter with the doctor would give handsome Leo a good opportunity for envious glances, and as Mrs Berens could not rival her neighbour in contour, she would have some chance of standing upon an equal footing.

The other reason was that she wished the curate to come up and speak to her at the same time as she was talking to the doctor. For Mrs Berens was not deeply in love; she only wished to be. The doctor and the curate were both fine, manly fellows, to either of whom she would have been willing to give herself and fortune; but somehow they had both been terribly unimpressionable, and though she had shown as plainly as she dared, any time during the past year, the tenderness waiting to burst forth, she was still Mrs Berens, and twelve months older.

Here was an opportunity of playing one-off against the other; for men could often be stirred, she knew, into learning the value of something when they saw that it was gliding from their grasp.

The couple from the Rectory came up, and Mrs Berens felt a pang as, after her warm salutations, in which her hand had rested in that of the curate for a few moments, to receive nothing more than a frank, friendly pressure, she saw that of Leo Salis rest in the doctor’s longer than she considered prudent. Leo seemed unusually handsome, too, that morning. There was a bright flush on her cheeks; her eyes sparkled, and she looked twenty, while Mrs Berens felt that she looked nearly forty.

Salis was glad of the encounter, for it was true that he had been making mistakes that morning. The very fact that Tom Candlish was in the church was disturbing, and when he knew that he must have come—he could not believe otherwise—expressly to stare at Leo, the presence of the man whom he had thrashed in so unclerical a way acted on his thoughts as a pointsman acts over trains at a busy junction—sent them flying in different directions beyond the drivers’ control.

The curate’s colour was heightened, for he knew that he had appeared at a disadvantage before the more thoughtful of his congregation. He was anxious, too, about Leo, who looked excited, and he dreaded any renewal of the past trouble; so that the encounter was satisfactory, if only from the fact that it afforded temporary relief from worrying thoughts and cares.

Mrs Berens was sweetness itself to all, and Leo seemed to rouse herself to be pleasant to the doctor, the result being that Mrs Berens was seen home—to part most affectionately from Leo, and with most tenderly friendly pressures of the hand to the gentlemen; after which she hurried into her room, to tear off her new bonnet and indulge in a passionate burst of sobbing.

“She’s as deceitful as she is young,” she cried. “She has thrown over Tom Candlish, and now she is winning over that foolish doctor; while Hartley Salis is as immovable as a stone.

“I’ll be even with her,” she cried. “Either Tom Candlish or the squire would be glad to marry me. I’ll have one of them, and I’ll make her half die with envy by asking her to my house, and—yes, there they go, and Horace North is going into the house with them. Ugh! the monster! He deserves to have the doorstep sink beneath his feet. But I’ll be revenged. No, no, no! they’re too bad,” she sobbed; “but I couldn’t stoop to that.”

Mrs Berens subsided into an easy-chair, to go on reddening her eyes; while the doctor accompanied his friends to the Rectory, and stopped chatting for a few minutes, but refused another invitation to dine even when Mary Salis and Leo both added their persuasions.

“No,” he said, “I’ve promised old Moredock his dose, and I’m going to see that he has it.” And then, after a few kindly words to Mary concerning her health—words that were almost tender, but which seemed to burn and sear the poor girl, as she read them aright—he went away, to hurry to his surgery in the Manor House.

“I’m very glad, for poor old Hartley’s sake, that the affair’s all off. It is, evidently; for Madam Leo seemed as cool as could be, and she’s as handsome and ladylike a girl as a man need wish to call wife. Humph! I’ll give him a little chloral—just a suspicion—to calm him down. Poor old boy! and he thinks he’s going to die. Well, it’s my theory,” he continued, as he compounded the sexton’s mixture and carefully corked it up; “and, think about it from whichever point I may, it seems to be quite right. There, Master Moredock, there’s your dose. That will lay any ghost in the United Kingdom, given sufficiently strong!”

Chapter Fourteen.

How Horace North did not go to the Meet.

“What a morning for a run with the hounds!” said Horace North, as he stood at the door of the fine old Manor House, where he had come to cool himself, after a scene with Mrs Milt, his housekeeper, owing to a committee of ways and means.

Mrs Milt had wanted to have everything her way. The doctor had shown a desire to have everything his way, and the approach of the two forces had resulted in an explosion.

“Candlish offered me a mount, and I’ve a good mind to take the offer, just for once. A good gallop would do me a world of good. No; I’ll go and have a chat with old Moredock, see Mrs Berens, Biddy Tallis, and Brown’s baby, and then settle down to a good, quiet study. Hah!”

Horace North was dubious. A slight puff upon his vane would have sent it in either direction, and it seemed as if the decisive puff came just then in the shape of something as light as air. For there was the sound of hoofs; and directly after, looking exceedingly handsome in her tightly-fitting riding-habit and natty hat, Leo Salis passed on her pretty mare.

She caught sight of him, and returned a coquettish nod and smile to his low bow, but did not draw rein, though she must have seen his intention to hurry down to the gate; cantering gently on, as charming a specimen of early womanhood as ever rode gracefully upon a well-bred mare.

“By George! that settles it,” said the doctor. “Where’s the meet?”

He hurried in, snatched up the county paper, and found that it was at Fir Tree Hill, four miles beyond the Hall.

“The very thing,” he cried. “I’ll just get on my boots, and walk over to the Hall, get my mount, and go on. No, I won’t; I’ll drive.”

He rang the bell, and Mrs Milt—a very severe-looking, handsome, elderly lady—in the whitest of caps, bibs, and tuckers, appeared frowning, as if still charged with the remaining clouds of the late storm.

“Tell Dick to put the horse in the chaise.”

Mrs Milt tightened her lips, and made parallel lines in her forehead, but did not stir.

“Well?” said the doctor.

“Well?” said Mrs Milt.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“Perfectly,” said Mrs Milt.

“Then, why don’t you do it? And for Heaven’s sake, my dear Mrs Milt, let’s have no more of this petty squabbling. Discharge cook; have a fresh house-maid; paper and clean up, and do whatever you please, but don’t bother me.”

“It is not my wish to bother you, Dr North,” said the lady austerely, and with considerable emphasis on the word, “bother.”

“Very well, then, let’s have peace. Such a scene as we had this morning interferes with my studies. Now, go and tell him to put to the horse.”

“Will you be good enough to tell me how, Dr North?”

“What do you mean?”

“You sent your man in that chaise to fetch some drugs from King’s Hampton.”

“Hah! so I did. He ought to be back by now. Yes; there are wheels.”

“The carrier,” said Mrs Milt.

“Pish! of course. Never mind, I’ll walk. There’s something else coming,” he said, listening. “Yes; that’s the chaise. Go and tell Dick not to take out the horse, but to come round here.”

“He’s coming round,” said Mrs Milt, going to the window; “and there’s a gentleman with him.”

The doctor looked up hastily, and frowned, as he caught sight of a dark, sleek-looking personage, about to descend from the chaise; while, as Mrs Milt went to open the door, Horace North exclaimed to himself:

“Now, why in the world is it that Nature will set one against one’s relations, and above all against Cousin Thompson, for—”

“Ah! my dear Horace, this was very good and thoughtful of you,” exclaimed the object of his thoughts, entering the room with extended hands.

“Ah! Thompson, glad to see you,” said the doctor, innocently enough—for the lie was from habit, not intentional—“but you are not cyanide of potassium!”

“Sure I’m not, indeed; but I want to consult you.”

“I sent in my man for a portion of that unpleasant chemical; not to meet you.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter, my dear boy. I was coming down, and I saw your chaise; and I know you like me to make myself at home, so give me some breakfast.”

“Yes, of course. Run down this morning?”

“Yes, by the six-thirty from Paddington. Early bird gets the first pick, you know.”

“There goes my gallop,” groaned the doctor, as a mental vision of Leo Salis appeared before him, while he rang the bell.

“Not ill, are you? Come to consult me?”

“No, I’m not ill; but I have come to consult you, my dear Horace.”

“Did you ring, sir?”

“Yes, Mrs Milt; my cousin would like some breakfast.”

“I am getting it ready, sir; but it can’t be done in two minutes and a half.”

“No, no, of course not, Mrs Milt. Thank you. Send word when it’s ready.”

“I’ll bring word myself, sir,” said Mrs Milt austerely.

“No, don’t trouble, my dear Mrs Milt,” said Cousin Thompson, who looked so sleek in skin and black cloth that he shone; “a cup of coffee and a sole, cutlet—anything.”

“Sole! cutlet! My dear fellow, this isn’t London. Give him some ham and eggs, Mrs Milt,” said the doctor. “Now, old fellow,” he continued, as the door closed after the housekeeper a little more loudly than was necessary, “business: what’s the matter? Liver?”

“No, no, my dear Horace. I’m quite well. To consult you about Mrs Berens.”

The doctor pushed back his chair.

“Why, how surprised you look! You recommended her to come to me about her money affairs.”

“Oh! Ah! Yes, of course; so I did. She asked me to give her the name of a London solicitor, and so I gave her yours—my cousin’s.”

“It was very good of you, Horace, for I am a poor man,” said the visitor sleekly. “Far be it from me to quarrel with Uncle Richard’s apportionment of his money, but—”

“There, for goodness’ sake, don’t bring that up again! You know why the old man excluded you.”

“Yes. I had the misfortune to offend him, Horace,” said the visitor with a sigh.

“And now what about Mrs Berens?”

“Ah, yes; a very simple matter. You are a great friend of hers?”

“I am her doctor.”

“Yes, yes,” said the other, with an unpleasant chuckle, which made North long to kick him; “but if report is true, you are going to marry the handsome widow.”

“Then report is not true,” said North angrily. “Now to business.”

“Well, the fact is this,” said the visitor; “in my capacity of confidential solicitor to several people, I often have to give advice, and to raise money.”

“No doubt,” said the doctor drily.

“I have a client now who wants rather a heavy sum upon the security of some leasehold houses. Mrs Berens has money lying in the Three per Cents., and I thought that you, as her friend, might advise her. She would get six per cent, instead of three, and a word from you—”

“Will never induce a lady patient of mine to run any risks,” said the doctor shortly.

“Risks?”

“Breakfast’s ready,” said the doctor abruptly, and he led the way into the other room. Having sufficient wisdom not to recommence the attack, Cousin Thompson contented himself with breakfasting heartily, but he was not pleasant over his feeding; and, what was more, he had a way of bringing into every room he entered an odour of mouldy parchment.

After breakfast Cousin Thompson had an interview with Mrs Berens; and after that, without consulting his cousin, he walked across to the Hall to hold a meeting, not unconnected with money matters, with Tom Candlish. Had he consulted his cousin, he would have known that in all probability Tom Candlish had gone to the meet, especially as he rarely missed a run.

Consequently, Cousin Thompson returned to the doctor’s, to find him chafing over his disappointment. Not that he was a hunting man; but the whim had seized him to go, and the appearance of Leo Salis had helped to make the ride more attractive than it might have appeared at another time.

“Ah, Horace, my dear fellow,” he said, “I shall have to trespass on your hospitality for dinner, and then ask you to give me a bed.”

“All right,” said the doctor gruffly. “Give you a dose too, if you like.”

“Thanks, no, unless you mean wine.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll give you a glass of port,” said the doctor. “I hope you haven’t persuaded that poor woman to invest in anything risky.”

“Now, my dear Horace, what do you take me for?” cried Cousin Thompson.

“A lawyer.”

“But there are good lawyers and bad lawyers.”

“Well, from a legal point of view, you’re a bad lawyer. I never gave you but one case to conduct for me, and that you lost.”

“The barrister lost it, my dear Horace. Don’t be afraid. I am not a legal pickpocket. I might retaliate, and say you’re a bad doctor.”

“Well, so I am—horribly bad. The amount of ignorance that exists in my brain, sir, is truly frightful.”

“But you go on curing people.”

“Trying to cure people, sir, you mean. Wading about in deep water; groping in the darkness. Thank Heaven, sir, that you were not made a doctor. Eh, what is it—some one ill?” he cried, as Mrs Milt entered the room with a note.

“Poor somebody!” said Cousin Thompson to himself.

“Note from the Rectory, sir.”

“Oh!” ejaculated the doctor; “shan’t be able to go, as you are here. Wants me to play a game at chess. Salis, you know.”

As he spoke he leisurely unfastened the envelope, and began to read.

“Good heavens!” he exclaimed. “Mrs Milt, attend to my cousin as if I were here. Very sorry. Serious case,” he continued, turning to his guest; and the next minute he had hurried from the house, to set off almost at a run for the Rectory.

For Hartley Salis’ note was very brief, but none the less urgent, containing as it did these words:

“For Heaven’s sake, come on! Leo has had a serious fall.”

Chapter Fifteen.

A Refractory Patient.

Leo made light of her accident, though her shoulder was a good deal hurt, and she bore the bandaging of what was a serious wrench with the greatest fortitude. As North learned by degrees, there had been a magnificent run, but towards the last, when Leo was almost heading the field, the mare had become unmanageable, and had rushed at a dangerous jump, with the result that she fell, threw her rider on the bank of the deep little river, and, in her efforts to rise, entangled herself with Leo’s habit, and rolled with her right into the water.

“A most providential escape,” said Salis, who looked pale with anxiety.

“What nonsense, Hartley!” said the girl; “a bit of a bruise on the shoulder and a wetting.”

“Yes, but you would have been drowned if the gentlemen of the hunt had not galloped up to your aid.”

“But they always do gallop up to a lady’s aid if her horse falls,” said Leo, speaking excitedly. “There, don’t make so much of it; and it was utterly absurd, Hartley, for you to send for a doctor for such a trifle.”

“Trifle or no, Miss Salis,” said the doctor, “I should advise your seeking your bed at once.”

“Nonsense, Dr North!”

“Well, then, I must insist,” he said firmly.

“Oh, very well,” said Leo; “I suppose you are master, so I have no more to say. A little girl has had an accident, and so they put her to bed. Fudge!”

“Leo, dear,” said Mary, from her couch, “pray be advised. Dr North would not wish it if it were not necessary.”

“Certainly not,” said North shortly, for he was annoyed at Leo’s flippant manner, and ready to wonder why he had felt attracted that morning.

“What nonsense, Mary!” cried Leo. “Pray don’t you interfere.”

Mary sighed, and remained silent.

“Well, as you please,” said North. “I have given you good advice: act as you think best.”

He turned to go, but was followed into the hall by the curate.

“Come into my room,” said the latter, with a pained and perplexed look in his face. “This is very sad, old fellow.”

“What? being guardian to a couple of giddy girls?” said the doctor petulantly. “No, no: I beg your pardon; don’t take any notice of my bitter way; but really, Salis, old boy, you had better have got rid of that mare.”

“Yes, I wish I had,” said the curate sadly; “but Leo seems to take such pleasure in it—and who could foresee such a mishap as this?”

“I could,” said the doctor shortly. “Good thing she was not killed.”

“You don’t think the hurt serious?”

“Serious? No. Give her a good deal of pain, of course.”

“And the chill?”

“What chill?”

“The plunge into the river after a heated ride.”

“She changed her things at once, of course?”

“No,” said the curate. “It seems that out of bravado she insisted on mounting again, and then rode slowly home. She was shivering when she came in.”

“Why was I not told all this before?” said North sharply. “Look here, Salis, old fellow; she must go to bed directly, and take what I send her. Exercise your authority, or she will have a very serious cold.”

He hurried away, and did not send the promised medicine, but took it himself, leaving it with emphatic instructions as to its being taken; and the result was that Leo Salis laughed at the supposed necessity, as she termed it, and calmly declined to follow out the doctor’s views.

Chapter Sixteen.

“I am not Ill.”

Hartley Salis did not tell the doctor the whole of his trouble, neither did he say a word to Mary upon the subject; but she divined the cause of his auger as she lay helpless there, and sighed as she wished that she could set matters right.

For Tom Candlish had ridden home with Leo, and parted at the gate.

“I might have known that they would meet,” said Salis, as he sat thinking; “but I never imagined that he would have the assumption to come again to the house.”

But Tom Candlish had helped Leo when she was in great peril of being drowned; and as the curate learned this he felt his impotence, and was coldly courteous, while, on his side, Tom Candlish was defiant, almost to the point of insolence; and his manner to Leo seemed intimate enough to startle Salis, and make him wonder whether they had met since the scene at the river-side.

Hartley Salis soon had something to divert his attention from this point, for the next day Leo was not very well. She was tired, she said. It had been a very long run, but delightful all the same; and she allowed now that perhaps it would have been better if she had listened to the doctor’s advice.

“I shall be quite well to-morrow,” she cried. “Why, Hartley, how serious you look!”

“Do I?” he said, smiling, for he had been communing with himself as to whether he should ask Leo plainly if she had kept her word.

“Do you? Yes!” she cried angrily; and, without apparent cause, she flashed out into quite a fit of passion. “I declare it is miserable now to be at home. It is like living between two spies.”

“My dear Leo!” began Salis.

“I don’t care: it is. Mary here watches me as a cat does a mouse. You always follow me about whenever I stir from home; and then you two compare notes, and plot and plan together how to make my life a burden.”

“Leo, dear,” said Mary gently, “you are irritable and unwell, or you would not speak like this.”

“I would. I am driven to it by my miserable life at home. I am treated like a prisoner.”

“Leo, my child,” began Salis.

“Yes, that’s it—child! You treat me as if I were a child, and I will not bear it. Anything more cruel it is impossible to conceive.”

“Nonsense, dear,” said Salis, smiling gravely, as he took his sister’s hand.

She snatched it away; not so quickly, though, but that he had time to feel that it was burning hot, as her scarlet cheeks seemed to be, while her eyes were unusually brilliant.

It was no time to question or reproach, and the curate set himself to soothe.

“Why, Leo, my dear,” he said, smiling. “I shall begin to think you are cross.”

“If you mean indignant,” she retorted, “I am. My very soul seems to revolt against the wretched system of espionage you two have established against me.”

“No, no, Leo, dear!” said Mary. “How can you say such things of Hartley, whose every thought is for your good?”

“Good—good—good!” cried Leo; “I’m sick of the very word! Be good! Be a good girl! Oh! it’s sickening!”

Salis made a sign to Mary to be silent, but Leo detected it.

“There!” she cried, with her eyes flashing. “What did I say? You two are always plotting against me. Ah!”

She shivered as from a sudden chill, and drew her chair closer to the fire.

“Do you feel unwell, dear?” said Salis anxiously.

“No, no, no! I have told you both a dozen times over that I am quite well. It is a cold morning, and I shivered a little. Is there anything extraordinary in that?”

“I only felt anxious about you, dear.”

“Then, pray don’t feel anxious, but let me be in peace.”

She caught up a book, and tried to read; while, to avoid irritating her, Salis and Mary resumed their tasks—the one writing, the other busy over her needle; and to both it seemed as if they were performing penance, so intense was the desire to keep on glancing at Leo, while they felt the necessity for avoiding all appearance of noticing her.

She held her book before her, and appeared to be reading, but she did not follow a line; for the letters were blurred, and a curious, dull, aching sensation racked her from head to foot, rising, as it were, in waves which swept through her brain, and made it throb.

This, with its accompanying giddiness, passed off, and with obstinate determination she kept her place, and the pretence of reading was carried on till towards evening.

They had dined—a weary, comfortless meal—at which Leo had taken her place, and made an attempt to eat; but it was evident to the others that the food disgusted her, and almost everything was sent untasted away.

The irritability seemed to have died out, but every attempt to draw her into conversation failed; and after a time the meal progressed in silence, till they drew round the fire at the end to resume their tasks, almost without a word.

Salis was busy over a formal report of the state of the parish for the rector. Mary was hard at work stitching, to help a poor widow who gained a precarious living by needlework, and Leo still had her book before her eyes.

Mary’s were aching, and she was about to ring for the lamp, for the short December afternoon was closing in, and Salis was in the act of wiping his pen, when Leo suddenly let fall her book, to sit up rigidly, staring wildly at them.

“Leo, my child!”

“Well, what is it?” she said; and her voice sounded harsh and strange. “Why did you say that? You knew I should say yes.”

“Yes, yes, of course, my dear; but I did not speak.”

“You did. You said I lied unto you, quite aloud, and”—with a return of her irritable way—“are we never going to have dinner?”

Salis rose from the table where he had been writing, and laid his hand upon his sister’s arm.

“Leo, dear,” he said anxiously; and he gazed in her wild eyes, which softened and looked lovingly in his.

“No,” she said, as she nestled to him and laid her cheek upon his arm; “a bit of a wrench. My shoulder aches, but it will soon be well, dear.”

“Lie back in your chair,” said Salis, as he laid his hand upon her throbbing brow.

“Yes, that’s nice,” she said, smiling as she obeyed. “So cool and refreshing—so cool.”

“Do you feel drowsy? Would you like to have a nap?”

“Yes, if you wish it,” she said. “I am sleepy. Don’t tell them at home, dear.”

Salis started, and his face grew convulsed, as he exchanged glances with Mary, who read his wish, wrote a few lines in pencil, and softly rang the bell.

“Take that at once,” she whispered to Dally Watlock, who entered, round-eyed and staring.

“To Mr Tom Candlish, miss?”

“No, no, girl; to Mr North.”

Mary drew her breath hard as the door closed behind the girl, for she read in her words a tale of deceit and also who had been the messenger, perhaps, in many a love missive sent on either side.

She tried to rise, feeling that this was a time of urgent need; but her eyes became suffused with tears as she sank back helpless in her seat.

“Take my arm, Leo, dear,” said Salis. “You would be better if you went up to your room and lay down.”

“Yes, dear; if you wish it,” she said softly; and she started up, but caught at her brother, and clung to him as if she had been seized by a sudden vertigo, and then stared wildly round.

Salis gave Mary a nod, and then, drawing Leo’s arm through his, led her up to the door of her room, which she entered while he ran quickly down.

“Quite delirious,” he said quickly. “I hope North will not be long. I thought he would have been here this morning.”

He was busy as he spoke preparing for a task which he had performed twice daily since Mary’s convalescence. For, taking her in his arms as easily as if she had been a child, he bore her out of the room and up to Leo’s door.

As Mary, trembling with anxiety, pressed it open, Leo uttered an angry cry, dashed forward, and thrust the door back in her face.

“No, no!” she said hoarsely; “not you. Let me be. Let me rest in peace.”

“But Leo, dear, you are ill.”

“I am not ill,” she cried fiercely. “Go away!”

“Don’t irritate her,” whispered Salis gently. “Leo, dear, Mary will be in her own room. Lie down now.”

The phase of gentleness had passed, and Leo turned upon him almost savagely, in her furious contempt.

“Lie down! Lie down! as if I were a dog! Oh! there must be an end to this. There must be an end to this.”

She had partly opened the door so as to speak to her brother, but now she closed it loudly, and they heard her walking excitedly to and fro.

Chapter Seventeen.

What Dally was Doing.

“I feared it,” said North, as he returned from the bedroom, where he had left Leo with the servants, who stood staring helplessly at her, and listening to her ravings about the mare, the plunge into the cold river, and the injured shoulder. “Violent fever and delirium. Poor girl! what could we expect? Heated with her ride, the fall, the sudden plunge into the water, and then a long, slow ride in the drenched garments.”

“Do you think she is very ill?” said Mary anxiously.

“Very; but not dangerously, I hope. There, trust to me, and I will do everything I can. You must have a good nurse at once. Those women are worse than useless. I’ll send on my housekeeper.”

“But you are not going?” cried Salis, with the look of alarm so commonly directed at a doctor.

“My dear boy—only to fetch medicine. I’ll not be long; and mind this: she must not leave her room now. She must be kept there at any cost.”

“And I am so helpless, Hartley,” whispered Mary piteously. “It is so hard to bear.”

The curate bent down and kissed her, and then, taking his place by the bedroom door, he remained to carry out the instructions he had received.

They were necessary, for he had not been there five minutes before the delirious girl rose from her couch, and there was an angry outcry on the part of the women. She insisted upon going to the stable to see to her mare. It was being neglected; and it was only by the exercise of force that she was kept in the room.

Before half-an-hour had passed, the doctor was back, and quiet, firm Mrs Milt, who put off her crotchety ways in the face of this trouble, took her place by the bedside, and with good effect; for, partly soothed by the old woman’s firm management, and partly by the strong opiate the doctor had administered, Leo sank into a restless sleep, in which she kept on muttering incoherently, the only portions of her speech at all connected being those dealing with her accident, which seemed to her to be repeated again and again.

It was towards ten o’clock, as the doctor was returning by the short cut of the fields to the Rectory, after having been home for a short time, that he caught sight of a couple of figures a short distance over the stile leading down to the meadows, through which the little river ran.

“Humph!” he muttered, as, in spite of the darkness, he recognised the figures, his own steps being hushed by the moist pasture, and the couple too intent upon their conversation to hear him pass.

“Humph!” he said; “poor old Moredock is right, perhaps, about the girl. Confounded hard upon the people to have such a scoundrel loose among them.”

He half-hesitated, as if he felt that it was his duty to interfere, but there was too much earnest work at the Rectory for him to speak at a time like this. And, besides, he could not have explained why, but the thought seemed to afford him something like satisfaction, for it was evident that if Tom Candlish had stooped to court pretty Dally Watlock, the Rectory servant, everything must have long been at an end between Leo and the squire’s brother, the thrashing administered by Mr Salis having been effectual in its way.

He was extremely anxious, too, about Leo; for unconsciously a new interest was awakening in him, and he felt that no case in which he had been engaged had ever caused him more anxiety than this. So he hurried on to his patient’s room, where the fever was growing more intense, and the flushed face was rolled from side to side upon the white pillow.

“Just the same, sir,” said Mrs Milt, as he asked a few eager questions. “She’s been going on like that ever since you left. Isn’t she very bad? Hark at her breath.”

“Very bad, Milt,” said the doctor gravely; “and if matters go on like this I shall send over to King’s Hampton for—”

“No, no; don’t you do that, sir,” said the old housekeeper sharply. “If you can’t save her no one can.”

“Why, Milt!” exclaimed the doctor wonderingly.

“Oh! you needn’t look like that, sir. I know you. It’s a deal of wherrit you give me with your awkward ways and irregular hours; but I will say this for you, there isn’t a cleverer doctor going.”

“And yet you walked over to King’s Hampton to the other doctor when you were ill.”

“Well, you had put me out so just then, and I felt as if I would sooner have died than come to you.”

“Ugh! you obstinate old thing,” said North. “There, I’m going down to talk to Mr Salis for a while; then I shall come and take your place for six hours while you go and lie down.”

“Oh!” ejaculated Mrs Milt; and she tightened her lips and remained silent for a few moments, while her master re-examined his patient. Then, drawing herself up: “I may be obstinate, sir, but I think I know my duty in a case of illness. I’m here to watch by Miss Leo Salis’s bedside, and here I’m going to stay.”

“Mrs Milt,” said the doctor sternly, “the first duty of a nurse is to obey instructions, as you well know. Now, no more talking, but sit down till I return.”

Mrs Milt looked tighter than ever, and her rigid stay-bone gave a crack, but she obeyed; while the doctor went down to where Salis and Mary were anxiously awaiting his report.

“I meant to have had some tea ready for you,” said Mary, after hearing what he had to say; “but Dally is missing. She must have gone to her grandfather’s cottage.”

The doctor uttered a loud “Humph!” and then remarked that he could wait.

He had to wait some time, as Dally had gone to keep an appointment in the meadows, and had come upon a figure leaning against a great willow pollard on the river’s brink.

The figure started forward out of the darkness and caught her arm, with the result that Dally uttered a little affected squeal.

“La, Mr Candlish! how you made me jump!”

“Why, what brings you here?” he cried, passing his arm round the girl’s waist.

“Now, do adone, sir; you’ve no business to touch me like that. What would Joe Chegg say?”

“That I was a wise man, and that it was the prettiest little waist in Duke’s Hampton.”

“Please keep your fine speeches for Miss Leo, and talk about her waist, sir, and let me go. I only come for a walk.”

“Nonsense! tell me. You’ve got a message?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“You—you have a letter?”

“No,” said Dally, shaking her head, and struggling just a little for appearance’ sake.

“Is she coming, then?”

“No, she isn’t; for she’s too ill.”

“Eh? Nonsense!”

“But indeed she is, sir, and confined to her bed.”

“And she sent you, Dally. Oh! how good of her.”

“No, nor she didn’t send me neither, Mr Candlish; and do let go. You shouldn’t.”

“Has she caught a cold, Dally?”

“Horrid bad one; and she’s gone right off her head.”

“Gammon!”

“She has, indeed, sir; and me and cook had to hold her down: she was so bad.”

“Hold her down?”

“Yes; and she kept on talking in a hurry like, all about the hunting and falling in the water.”

“Did she say anything about me?” said Tom Candlish eagerly.

“About you? I should think not, indeed. You men seem to think that ladies are always thinking about you. Such stuff!”

Then a long amount of whispering took place, Tom Candlish being one of those gentlemen who never fret after the absent, but possess a sailor-like power of taking the good the gods provide.

At the end of five minutes there was the sound of a smart smack—not a kiss, but the contact of a palm upon a cheek.

Then, from out the darkness came the expression, “You saucy jade!” following upon the rush of feet in flight.

A minute later the swing gate leading into the Rectory grounds was heard to clap to, and Tom Candlish stopped in his pursuit and walked home across the fields.

Chapter Eighteen.

Leo makes a Confession.

“Yes, doctor, I’m better, and you needn’t come again.”

“Yes, you’re better, Moredock. Seen any more ghosts?”

“Nay; I never see no ghosts. I only see what I did see; but how’s young miss up yonder?”

Horace North’s brow wrinkled, and his voice sounded stern.

“Ill, Moredock—seriously ill. Violent fever.”

“Fever—fever!” said the old man, backing away with unwonted excitement.

“Yes, fever, you selfish old rascal!” cried the doctor irascibly. “You oughtn’t to be afraid of catching a fever at your time of life.”

“But I am, doctor—I am,” said the old man, with a peculiar change in his voice. “You see, I’ve just been ill, and it would be very hard to be ill again. Is—is it ketching?”

“No!” roared the doctor angrily; “not at all. There, take care of yourself, and don’t go to the church again in the dark.”

“I shall go to the church as often as I like and when I like,” grumbled the old man. “It’s my church; but, I say, doctor, is it likely to be—eh?—you know—job for me?”

North looked at him with an expression of horror and loathing that made the old man stare.

“Why, you hideous old ghoul!” he cried; “do you want me to strangle you? Ugh!”

He hurried out of the cottage, and Moredock rose slowly and followed him as far as the door.

“What’s he mean by that? Gool? What’s a gool? He’s been drinking. I see his hand shake; that’s what’s the matter with him; and I’m glad he hasn’t got to mix no physic for me this morning. Now, I wonder what he takes. Them doctors goes into their sudgeries, and mixes theirselves drops as makes ’em on direckly. Old Borton used to, and I buried him. He’s making a bad job of it up at the Rectory, and he’s drinking, but I put him out by speaking of it. Ay, there he goes in at the Rect’ry gate. Wonder whether they’ll have a tomb for her, or a plain grave.”

Leo Salis had looked for some hours past as if one or the other would be necessary, and Moredock’s words had seemed to North as if each bore a sting.

So bad was the patient that when he reached the Rectory that day he decided to stay.

“I’d say, send for other advice directly, Salis,” he said drearily; “but if you had the heads of the profession here, they could do nothing but wait. The fever will run its course. We can do nothing but watch.”

“And pray,” said Salis sternly.

“And pray,” said the doctor, repeating his words. “Will you send over to the town, and telegraph?”

“No,” replied the curate. “I have confidence in you, North.”

He said no more, but turned into his study to hide his emotion, while North crossed to where poor helpless Mary lay back in her chair, looking white and ten years older as her eyes sought his, dumbly asking for comfort.

He took her hand, and kissed it, retaining it in his for a few minutes, as he stood talking to her, trying to instil hope, and little thinking of the agony he caused.

“I’ll go to her now,” he said. “There, try and be hopeful and help me to cheer up poor Hartley. He wants comfort badly. I’ll come and tell you myself if there is any change.”

“The truth,” said Mary faintly.

“The truth? Yes: to you,” he said meaningly; and his words seemed to convey that she was so old in suffering that she could bear to be told anything, though perhaps it might be withheld from her brother.

Mrs Milt, who had been an untiring watcher by the sick-bed, made her report—one that she had had to repeat again and again—of restless mutterings and delirium: otherwise no change.

“No, Mrs Milt, we have not reached the climax yet,” said North, sighing.

“There, go and lie down, my good soul,” he added after a short examination; “you must be tired out.”

“Tired, but not tired out, sir,” said the old lady. “Poor child! she has something on her mind, too, which frets her.”

“Indeed!” said North. “Yes,” continued Mrs Milt, in a whisper. “She keeps muttering about telling him something—confessing, she calls it sometimes.”

“Some old trouble come up into her brain,” said the doctor; and he sat down by the bedside, to gaze at Leo’s flushed face as she lay there with her eyes half closed, apparently sleeping heavily now.

“Not yet, not yet,” sighed North, as he took the hot, dry hand in his, and a shiver ran through him as he thought of the old sexton’s words, and wondered whether he would be able to save her—so young and beautiful—from so sad a fate.

“Poor child!” he said, half aloud; and then he sat on, hour after hour, wondering whether it would be possible to do more; whether he had done everything that medical skill could devise; and finally, as he came to the conclusion that he had thoroughly done his duty by his patient, his heart sank, and he owned to himself that in some instances he and the rest of the disciples of the great profession were singularly impotent, and merely attendants on Nature’s will.

Salis came up from time to time, to enter the room softly, and mutely interrogate his friend, and then go sadly back to his study—where Mary sat with him—to give her such news as he had to bear, and join with her in watching and praying for the wilful sister they both so dearly loved.

It was getting towards nine o’clock on the gloomy, stormy winter’s night when, after softly replenishing the fire, as North was returning to his place by the bed, he heard a faint sigh, and bending down over his patient, he found that her eyes were wide open—not in a fixed, delirious stare, full of excitement, but calm and subdued, while a sweet smile passed into her expression as his face neared hers.

“Is that dreadful old woman there?” she whispered.

“No,” he said, laying his hand upon her forehead. “I am alone.”

“Then I will speak,” she said, in a low, passionate voice. “You have not known—you have not believed it possible—but tell me, I have been very ill?”

“Yes,” he said gently, “you have been ill; but don’t talk—try and rest.”

“I have been very ill, and I may die, and then you would never know,” she whispered quickly. “It is no time, then, for a foolish, girlish reserve. I may have been light and frivolous—coquettish too—but beneath it all I have loved you, and you alone. I do love you with all my heart.”

Two soft, white arms were thrown about Horace North’s neck, to draw him closer to his patient’s gently heaving breast.

Chapter Nineteen.

Was it Delirium?

“Leo, my child, think what you are saying,” cried North.

“I do think. I have lain here and thought for hours. I am not ashamed to confess it. Why should I be?”

She looked up at him inquiringly; while he for the moment felt giddy with emotion, but recovered himself directly.

“She is delirious, poor child,” he said to himself; and he tried to remove the enlacing arms from his neck.

“No, no; don’t leave me,” she said softly. “Don’t be angry with me for saying this.”

“I am not angry, but you are weak. You have been very ill, and you must not be excited now.”

“No, I am not excited. I only feel happy—so happy. You are not angry?”

“Angry? No,” he said tenderly. “There, let me lay you back upon your pillow. Try and sleep.”

“No. I do not wish to sleep. Only tell me once again that you are not cross, and then sit down by me, and let me hold your hand.”

“Poor girl!” muttered North, as he felt the hands which had clasped his neck steal down his arm softly and lingeringly, as if they delighted in its strength and muscularity, resting for a few moments upon his wrist, and then grasping his hand tightly, while their owner uttered a low sigh of satisfaction.

He seated himself by the bedside, and Leo said softly, as she lay gazing into his eyes:

“I feel so happy and restful now.”

“And as if you can sleep?”

“Sleep? No. Let me lie and look at you. Don’t speak. I want to think. Shall I die?”

“Die? No; you must get better now, and grow strong, for Mary’s sake and for Hartley’s.”

“And for yours,” said Leo softly, as she smiled lovingly in his face. “I shall be your wife if I live.”

“You shall live, and grow to be happy with all who love you.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “with all who love me;” and she closed her eyes.

“It is delirium, poor child,” said North to himself. “Good heavens! am I such a scoundrel as to think otherwise?”

He sat back in his chair startled by the thoughts which had surged up to his brain. He was horrified. For, in spite of medical teaching, of his thorough command over himself, and of the fact that he had always been one whose love was his profession, he had found that he was strongly moved by the words and acts of the beautiful girl who had seemed to be laying bare the secrets of her heart.

“Delirium—delirium! the workings of a distempered brain,” he said to himself fiercely. “Good heavens! am I going to be delirious too?”

At that moment Leo opened her eyes again, with a calm, soft light seeming to burn therein, as she smiled in his face and drew his hand more to her pillow so that she could rest her cheek upon it, and once more her eyes half closed; but he knew that she was gazing at him still with the same soft, loving look which, in spite of his self-control, made his heart beat with a dull, heavy throb.

“I have so longed to tell you all this,” she whispered; “but I never dared till now. It has made me bitter, and distant, and strange to you. I was angry with myself for loving you; and yet I could not help it. You made me love you. I always did—I always shall.”

“It is delirium,” panted North. “I will not listen to her. Pah! it is absurd. Where is my manliness—where are all my honourable feelings? I can master such folly, and I will.”

He set his teeth, and his face grew hard and cold; but all the same his pulses quickened, and as he sat prisoned there, with those soft, lustrous eyes gazing into his, he found that he was dreaming of another life in which his scientific researches would be forgotten in the sweet, dreamy, sensuous existence which would be his—enlaced in that loving embrace, while those eyes gazed in his as they were gazing now, and those curved lips returned his kisses or murmured tenderly as once more they whispered the secrets of her breast.

“It has been so long. I have been so ill: but I do not complain, for it has made me free to speak to you as I speak now. No, no; don’t take away your hand. Let me rest like that.”

He was softly stealing away his hand, but she clung to it the more tightly, and her white teeth glistened between her ruby lips in a smile that was half mocking.

He heaved a deep sigh, and resigned himself to his position, while the new thoughts which came surging on in a flood began to sweep everything before them. She had been delirious, but there was no delirium here. She loved him. This young and beautiful girl, to whom for years he had given no thought save as the sister of his old friend, loved him passionately, and he knew now the meaning of the ideas which had troubled him for days—he must—he did love her in return.

But he was not beaten yet. A flush rose to his forehead and he set his teeth hard, as he recalled his position—the confidence reposed in him as a medical man—a confidence which he seemed to be abusing; and drawing his breath deeply, he resolved that he would be man enough to resist this temptation now Leo was weak and excited. She was yielding to her impulse as she would not have yielded had she been strong and well; hence he would be taking an unmanly advantage if he trespassed upon her weakness now.

His course was open; his mind clear. He would be tender and kind to her now. After she was well he could listen to her confessions of love as a lover should; and as the thought expanded in his brain that he would call this loving girl wife, he wondered how it was that he could have been so dull and cold before—how it was that love should have been shut from his mental vision as by a veil? And he sat gazing at his patient, almost dazzled by the bright light which seemed to be shed upon his future, till Hartley softly entered the room.

“Any change?” he whispered.

North glanced at the bed, and his heart beat fast. Leo was again sleeping uneasily, and muttering in a low whisper. To an ordinary observer there seemed to be none, but to Horace North there was an enormous change, and he asked himself whether he should speak now or wait.

He could not speak then of the subject nearest to his heart. He and Salis had always been the most intimate of friends—almost brothers—and they would be quite brothers in the future; but he could not tell him then.

“She seems calmer,” he whispered. “She was awake and talking a little while ago.”

“What—lucidly—sensibly?”

In spite of himself North could not help a start as he turned and met his friend’s eye, while his words were slow and constrained as he said, in a hesitating manner:

“Yes; I think so. But she is very weak.” And the mental question insisted upon being heard—Was she speaking sensibly, and as one in the full possession of her senses?

“North, old fellow, this is great news,” cried the curate. “Heaven be thanked! I must go and tell Mary.”

He was hurrying from the room, but his friend caught his arm.

“No, no; not yet,” he said hurriedly. “I would not raise her hopes too much.”

“Not when she is starving for the merest crumb of comfort? I must tell her.”

“Then be content to say I think she is a trifle better,” whispered North.

“But the climax must have come and gone?”

“I—I am not sure. The case is peculiar. Do as I say, and give her the crumb of comfort of which you spoke. To-morrow, perhaps, I can speak more definitely.”

Hartley Salis left the room, and North once more bent over the bed. His heart beat, his pulses throbbed, and the nerves in his temples seemed to tingle, as he laid his hand upon the burning brow, placed a finger upon the wrist, where the pulse beat so hard and pitifully, while, when he softly raised one of the blue-veined eyelids and gazed at the pupil, he drew back slowly, and shaded the sick girl’s face from the light.

It was growing late, the wind howled mournfully about the house, and from time to time there was a soft, patting noise at the window, as of some one tapping the panes with finger-tips. So high was the wind without that the candle flames were at times wafted to and fro.

Horace North had left the bedside, and was standing with his foot upon the fender, gazing down into the tiny glowing caverns in the fire, where the cinders fell together from time to time with a peculiar musical sound—the sound that strikes a watcher’s ear so strangely in the long hours of the night.

His thoughts were wild, and a tempest was raging in his breast as furious as that without. Love had made its first attack upon a strong man, and the wound was rankling. His brain was confused. He was almost giddy with his new sensations, astonished at the position in which he found himself.

He had been keen enough man of the world to understand Mrs Berens’ tender, shrinking advances, and they had been to him by turns a cause of annoyance and of mirth. But this was a novel and an intense delight. He could not have believed that he could be so moved.

It was a hard fight, but the man of honour won.

“I am her brother’s friend; I am her medical attendant,” he mused; “and neither by word nor look will I betray what passes in my heart till she is well. Then I, too, will lay bare the secret I shall hide.”

“And if she speaks to you again as she spoke a while ago—what then?”

It was as if a soft voice had whispered those words in his ear, and he shivered as he asked himself, “What shall I say?”

“It is all madness,” he cried fiercely—“utter madness. They were the outpourings of her diseased brain. Am I growing into an idiot? Has much study of the occult wonders of our life half turned my brain?”

He walked quickly to the bed, took up the candle, and let its light fall upon the flushed face for a few moments, a face looking so beautifully attractive with its wealth of rich hair tossed away over the white pillow.

He set down the candle, and pressed his hand softly once more upon her burning brow, listening the while to the dull throbbings of his heart.

“Yes, Horace North,” he said at last, “you, the much-praised would-be savant, are as weak as the weakest of your sex, ready to be flattered into a passion by the first sweet words which fall from a woman’s lips. You are strong in knowledge, you have mastered endless difficulties, but you have not mastered Horace North.”

“Fool—fool—fool!” he whispered to himself, after a pause; “with all your study to be so ready to rush to such a belief—ready to forget the trust reposed in you by a true man, by his sweet-minded sister, and, as it were, by you, my poor helpless girl. Spoken in your wild delirium, my child—the emanations of a young girl’s brain, of one whose waking thoughts must, Nature taught, be almost always of who is to be your mate through life. You opened the secret casket of your heart, my child, when helpless and without control, and I have gazed therein with prying eyes. But sleep in peace; they shall be secrets still. Yes,” he added, once more, as he drew steadily back—“delirium: she knows not what she says.”

A sigh from the sleeper made him pause, and then a low, musical laugh rang out, followed by a quick muttering.

Then once more the low laugh was heard, and the muttering became louder—then plainly heard, as if the speaker were in a merry protesting mood.

“You ask so much. Again? Well, I will confess. Yes, I do love you—with all my poor weak heart!”

Chapter Twenty.

A Venerable Old Man.

“No, Moredock, I am not going to find more fault, and I am not going to complain to the rector. If you had been a young man, with chances of getting work elsewhere, I should have had you discharged at once.”

“Ay, discharged at once,” said the old man, trying to bite his livid lip with one very yellow old tooth, as he stood in the vestry doorway, looking down at the curate.

“But as you are a venerable old man—”

“Gently, Parson Salis; a bit old, but not venerable,” grumbled the sexton.

“I shall look over it, and not disturb you for the short time you have to live upon this earth. But—”

“Now, don’t go on like that, sir, and don’t get talking about little time on earth. I may live a many years.”

“I hope you will, Moredock,” said the curate, taking out the cigar-case he had started at North’s recommendation, and carefully selecting a cigar before replacing it; “and I hope you will bitterly repent. If you had come to me and asked me I would have given you a bottle of wine, but for a trusted servant of the church to take advantage of his position and steal—”

“On’y borri’d it, sir.”

“I say steal, Moredock. It was a wicked theft,” said Salis sternly. “The wine kept here for sacramental purposes—”

“But it was only in the cupboard.”

“It was a wicked theft, sir.”

“And it’s poor sweet stuff; no more like the drop o’ port Squire Candlish give me than treacle and water’s like gin.”

“You’re a scoundrelly old reprobate, Moredock.”

“No, I arn’t, parson. I’m a good old sarvant o’ the church. Here have I been ill, as doctor ’ll tell you, and I was took bad in the church o’ Saturday, and you’d ha’ done the same, and took a drop o’ the wine.”

“And you’ve been taken bad Saturday after Saturday for months past, eh, sir?” said the curate sternly.

“Been out of order for a long bit, sir,” grumbled Moredock, shuffling from foot to foot like a scolded schoolboy.

“You old scoundrel!” said the curate, half rising from his seat in the dim vestry, where the surplices and gowns, hung against the old oak panels, seemed like a jury listening to the sexton’s impeachment. “You old scoundrel!” he said again, shaking the cigar at him, as if it were a little staff. “It’s quite a year since I began missing the wine, and I would not—I could not—suspect you. Why, I should as soon have thought that you would rob the alms box.”

The old man started, as if his guilty conscience needed no accuser, for he had more than once helped himself to a silver coin from the box within the south door, telling himself that the alms were for the poor, and that he was one of that extremely large fringe of rags upon civilisation.

“Well,” continued the curate, “I shall to some extent condone this very serious offence, Moredock, for I cannot find it in my heart to prosecute an old man of over ninety; so now go, and I sincerely hope that you will repent.”

“Ay, I’ll repent, parson; but it wouldn’t ha’ been much loss to ha’ been turned out o’ being saxton. Nobody dies now, and no one gets married. How’s Miss Leo?”

“Getting quite strong again.”

“That’s a blessing, sir,” grumbled the old man, who in spirit abused the young girl for defrauding him of certain fees. “Health’s a blessing, sir.”

“Yes, Moredock, it is,” said the curate, rising.

“And I thankye kindly, sir, for looking over the wine, I do. You needn’t lock it up. I won’t touch it again.”

“I shall not lock it up, Moredock. My forgiveness is full. I shall trust you as if this had never occurred.”

“Thankye, parson. That’s han’some.”

“But let me have no more complaints. You must do your duty, as I try to do mine.”

“Ay, parson, and I will,” said the old sexton, following his superior to the door leading out to the churchyard, where Salis stopped and took a box of vestas from his pocket, as he stood just outside the old stone doorway, where a stone corbel with a demoniacal expression of countenance seemed to be leering by his shoulder as if in enjoyment of what had taken place.

It was a sheltered corner for lighting a cigar, and the curate, without pausing to think, struck a match, and began to puff out the smoke.

“Well, I’ve no right to speak, as between parson and sax’on, sir; but twix’ old man and young man, I do say—what would you ha’ said to me if you’d ketched me having a pipe in the churchyard?”

“Why, you old rascal, I’ve often seen you smoking when you’ve been digging a grave.”

“Not often, parson; because one never hardly gets a grave to dig. I have had a pipe sometimes when my chesty has felt a bit weak.”

“I deserve your reproof, Moredock,” said the curate, putting out his cigar. “I have taken to smoking so much that I find myself lighting cigars at all times and seasons, and I am greatly to blame here.”

“Nay, nay, I shan’t say no more,” said the old man, calmly taking the place of reprover instead of being reproved; “but try a pipe, parson. Worth a dozen cigars. Stop a moment, sir, I wants another word with you.”

“Yes. What about?”

“My gran’child, Dally, parson. I arn’t saddersfied there.”

“Why, Moredock?”

“Because I don’t think you looks arter her morals as you should. ‘Send her to me, Moredock,’ you says, ‘and me and the young ladies will take every care on her.’”

“I did, Moredock; and we have.”

“Nay, you haven’t, sir; or else she wouldn’t go on as she do.”

“What do you mean, man?”

“Along o’ young Tom Candlish, squire’s brother, sir.”

“Is this true?”

“True, sir? Course it is. Don’t I say so? I’ve ketched ’em together over and over again.”

“Tut—tut—tut! this must be stopped,” cried Salis angrily. “Did you speak to him?”

“Ay, I spoke to him.”

“What did he say?”

“Called I an old fool.”

“But your grandchild. Did you speak to her?”

“Ay, course I did; but you might as well talk to yon cobble. She just laughed, and give her pretty head a toss. She is a pretty gal, parson.”

“Far too pretty, Moredock.”

“Oh! I don’t know ’bout that, sir. Think young Tom wants to marry her? I’ll put down a hundred pound the day she’s wed.”

“You will, Moredock? Why, I thought you were very poor.”

“So I am, parson, so I am; but I’ve saved up for the gal. But you keep her in more; it’ll make him more hungry arter her, and I’d like to see her mistress up at the Hall.”

“Moredock!” cried the curate, in horrible perplexity.

“Well, I should,” said the old man, grinning. “Squire’s drinking hisself to death as fast as he can, and he won’t marry; so young Tom’s sure to get the place. But you keep her in.”

“I will, Moredock,” said the curate sternly, and, in grave perplexity at the loose ideas of morality existing in Duke’s Hampton, he went straight home, to find the doctor seated by Mary’s couch.

Chapter Twenty One.

“Something Particular to Say.”

Horace North had sternly determined on self-repression, and, from the moment when the crisis of Leo’s fever had left her utterly prostrate, he had set himself the almost superhuman task of saving her from the grave.

He had treated his patient with a gentleness and care that gradually won upon her, harsh and distant as she was by nature; so that at last, after the first fits of wearing fretfulness were over, she began to greet him with a welcoming smile, and seemed happier when he sat down and stayed chatting to her by her bed.

On that night when the passionate avowals had been uttered she had sunk back into a violent fit of delirium; and since then, in all his long hours of watching, no word of love had passed her lips—no kindly look her eyes.

North was disappointed and touched to the quick, for he watched for her loving looks, listened for her tender words.

On the other hand, in his calmer moments he was pleased, for it made his task the lighter. He could repress himself until such time as his patient were well and he could honourably approach her to ask her to be his wife.

He was not surprised at her petulance or her irritability; and even in her worst moods he only smiled, as he thought of her past sufferings and present weakness. This childlike temper was the natural outcome of such a fever, and would soon pass away.

“It is better as it is,” he said, and he toiled away, neglecting his studies, his great discovery, all for Leo’s sake, that she might live and grow strong once more.

“How beautiful!” he thought; and as she unconsciously suffered his attentions, receiving them as her right, as if she were a queen, Mary drank in all, and read the doctor’s heart to the very deepest cell.

But she made no sign. It was her lot to suffer, and she would bear all in silent patience to the end, working to make others happy if she could, but sorrowing the more, as she wished well to North, and tried to believe that, after all, Leo might change, and worthily return his love.

For, after seeing her home, Tom Candlish sent twice to know how Leo was. After that he seemed to take no further notice, though he really spent his time in asking Dally Watlock about her mistress, as he called it—questions which took a long time to ask and longer to gain replies.

Leo never mentioned his name, but lay back reading, setting aside the book wearily when any one seemed disposed to converse, and taking up the book again as soon as whoever it was had done.

Salis entered the room where North was seated conversing with Mary, whose pinched face bore a slight colour as she listened to his words, something he was saying being interrupted by the brother’s entrance.

“Ah, here you are!” cried North warmly. “I have stayed to see you, for I have something particular to say.”

“That’s right. At least, it is not bad news, I hope.”

“I hope good,” said the doctor warmly, and then he stopped awkwardly.

It had all seemed so easy to say in his own room. Here it was terrible.

Mary’s heart began to flutter, and a piteous look came into her eyes; but she closed them gently, and a tear slowly welled through from each.

“Well, what is it? Nothing fresh about Tom Candlish, I hope?”

“About him? No; nonsense! I wanted to tell you that there is no further need for me to attend your sister,” Slid the doctor clumsily. “She is nearly well now, and—”

“My dear Horace, you have saved her life!”

“No, no; nonsense! Only did as any other medical man would have done.”

“I say she owes you her life, and it will be Leo’s duty to remember that, and to strive henceforth to render back to you—”

“If she only will!” cried North excitedly, as he sprang up and clasped his old friend’s hand.

For the ice was broken. He could speak now, and as Mary looked up through a mist of blinding tears he seemed to her like the hero she had always painted—as the man whom some day she might love. But for her love was dead.

“Why, Horace, old man, what do you mean?” cried Salis, as Mary fought down a wail of agony which strove to escape her lips.