"If you will be controlled and prudent,
and will not again expose me to the doctor's
remarks."

"I will do, or not do, anything you tell
me to do, or not to do."

"Have you a sister?"

"No."

"Does Dr. Fearnwell know you have
no sister?"

"He knows nothing of me, except as a
student."

"Tell him to-morrow, then, and tell the
people at the farm, that your sister is coming
to join you. Dr. Fearnwell won't come
out often: when he does, it will be easy to
devise some reason for his not seeing ' your
sister.'"

She stopped the outburst of my gratitude
by rising to leave the room. Not
only by this, but by the look she gave
me—a dark, inscrutable, terrible look—
pondering over which I grew cold.

Next day, she asked Dr. Fearnwell, when
he came to fetch me, how to address to me at
the farm, giving no reason for her question,
which, indeed, required none. It was
natural that she should wish to write to
the patient to whom she had for two
months devoted herself unwearyingly.

In late August and early September, the
Haunted Holly Farm, under the edge of
the Grey Moor, was a delicious place.
Dr. Fearnwell, who had, no doubt, chosen
it for its austere severity of situation,
and the absence of all softness and
luxuriance in its surroundings, had no
knowledge of the old walled south-sloping garden,
lying at some distance from the house,
where, because of the bleakness of the spot,
all flowers blossomed late: Midsummer
blossoms postponing themselves often till
August; and where, because of the good
soil and the pure air, they blossomed
profusely. Nor did he take note of the one
great meadow, now grey for the scythe,
into which the flagged path, rose-bordered,
of this garden opened through a grand old
gate, with carved pillars and sculptured
urns, and, on each side, an ancient lime-
tree, the sole remnants of a glorious old
avenue. The farm had been one of the
dependencies of a great mansion.

On the second afternoon after I had
come to the farm—for more than four-and-
twenty hours she had let me know what it
was to be without her—Mrs. Rosscar, ' my
sister,' sat with me in the old garden, a
profuse wilderness of roses and of
honeysuckles; and in the meadow before us the hay
was down, and the air full of its fragrance.
She let me hold her hand in mine, she let
me press close to her with a passionate
desire to satisfy the hunger for her presence,
created by her absence.

"God bless Dr. Fearnwell!" I cried.
"To be ill in that dingy room in Strathcairn-
street was exquisite beyond anything
I have known, while you nursed me; but
to grow well in this enchanting place,
where the air feels like the elixir of life,
with you always beside me——-!"

She smiled, a smile of which I saw the
beginning only; for she turned her head
aside. Then she sighed, and said, softly:

"And when you are well? When you
have no longer any excuse for claiming
' nurse' or ' sister'?"

There was in her voice, as she said this,
for the first time, a slight tremulousness.

"Then," I cried, passionately; the air, the
beauty of the place, her beauty, completely
intoxicating me; " I shall claim a wife. I
can never again do without you. You
must marry me!"

Her hand moved in mine, but not with
any effort to withdraw itself. She turned
her face still further aside, but through the
muslin that covered her bosom—she had
in these days discarded her close black
dresses, though wearing always mourning—
I saw that the warm blood rushed across
her snowy neck and throat.

By that emboldened, I pressed her for
an answer, for a promise of her love. She
turned on me.

"That I should love you!" she said,
"Is it credible?"

She rose and left me. I sat where she
had left me, pondering what might be the
meaning of those words, of the voice in
which they were spoken, of the look that
accompanied them. The voice had none
of the music of her voice; the look was
incomprehensible; I could read in it, it
seemed to me, anything rather than love.
And yet I confidently, audaciously, believed
that she loved me, but that she struggled
against her love.

What motive could she have, but love,
for devoting herself to me thus? Why
risk good name and fame, which to so
proud a woman as I thought her, could
hardly be indifferent. What could I
conclude but that she loved me? And yet
with what a strange fashion of love—so
cold, so passive, so irresponsive! With so
slight a difference, if with any difference,
one might so easily express disgust.

I must have sat a long time where she
had left me; for when a hand was laid
on my shoulder, and a voice said, near my
ear: " My patient, yon must come in, the