manner. " A little so-so, perhaps, but nothing
more. But let me feel your pulse—come, my
dear lady, let me do that."

"There is no occasion," growled Annie, folding
her hands tightly over her knee.

"Mrs. Grantley seems quite afraid of me,"
laughed Dr. Downs to Laurence, cheerily, but
as if he was speaking of a child. This did not
improve Annie's temper. "My dear madam,"
he continued, coaxingly, " I am not going to be
offensive, or, I hope, very disagreeable; but it
is my duty to tell you that you need a little
attention. What possible objection can there
be to an old man like me just looking in every
now and then upon you, and keeping you
straight?"

"Do you want to have a chance of poisoning
me under pretence of nursing me?" said Annie,
impassively, turning to her husband.

"The old thing," whispered the doctor; " an
almost infallible sign—suspicion of their best
friends—causeless, wild, rampant suspicion!
Dear, dear! This looks serious."

"My dear Annie," said Laurence, soothingly,
"how can you talk so wildly? Be advised; suffer
Dr. Downs to prescribe for you, and everything
will come right. It is only your good that I am
anxious for."

"There is some plot here, and I am not
disposed to be the victim," said Annie, rising,
and speaking just as usual, without haste
or emphasis; her words dripping over her
lips as if she had not energy enough even to
enunciate them. Her eyes were fixed with a
dull, stupid kind of rancour on her husband;
but a merely animal rancour, instinctive rather
than intelligent. "Dr. Downs may go. I
am not ill. I don't want his medicines, and
I shall not take them if he sends them. If you
want to murder me, Laurence, you must do it
with less preparation; for I know that this is
what you are aiming at, only you are a coward,
and are afraid to bring it about." She rang the
bell. "Baker, show Dr. Downs out," she said,
in her stolid way.

"Not yet, Baker, not yet!" cried Laurence,
quite amiably, as if his wife had simply made a
mistake; for Laurence was careful of appearances
always, and especially anxious for a favourable
verdict from his household now.
"Come, doctor," taking his arm, " come into
the library with me. I want to talk to vou.
Well?" he asked, anxiously, as they entered the
room.

"Ah!" sighed Dr. Downs, shaking his head,
"a dreadful thing, if it should be true, Mr.
Grantley! But I can scarcely decide on one
visit, you know. I will come again in a day or
two—better not immediately, else it might
excite her— but in a day or two, when I will
undertake the case thoroughly."

"But you think the brain is threatened,
doctor?"

"Threatened? Yes, indeed I fear so; but
certainly not distinctly diseased at least not yet."
He did come again, many times; and at every
visit Annie was more sullen and more strange;
ruder in her manners, more incautious in her
Language; fuller of wild accusations and stupid
suspicions; till Dr. Downs— not a very acute
man at the best of times, and one who generally
asked the friends of his patient what ailed them
—took his impression as Laurence had indicated,
and gave it as his opinion that she was decidedly,
but not dangerously, insane.

"Yet decidedly?" said Laurence.

"Mr. Grantley, after careful and dispassionate
study, I feel myself competent to pronounce the
word: decidedly."

Laurence hid his face in his hands, to conceal
the guilty joy that burst over it.

"And what must I do with her, doctor?" he
then said. " Ought I not to put her under
proper care? I scarcely like the awful
responibility of keeping her here."

"Why you see, my dear sir, if it originates in
scrofula, general management is a great thing.
Nourishing diet, plenty of society, change of air;
perhaps total change of place, such as foreign
travel and the like; the health strictly attended
to, —  all these are admirable correctives to strumous
tendencies. So, before sending her out of
your own hands, which may be a painful necessity
after all, try home measures: try a little gaiety,
a little movement, a little shaking up; a ball, for
instance; not a bad notion, Mr. Grantley; a ball
might be very advantageous to her at the present
crisis. She wants rousing, my dear sir; half
these cases become chronic for want of rousing.
If I see no improvement after this, then, Mr.
Grantley, it will be my painful duty to recommend
restraint."

The doctor spent that day and part of the
next in running about the neighbourhood, telling
every one that Mrs. Laurence Grantley, poor
thing, was decidedly queer; and that Mr. Laurence
Grantley was the best husband in the
world, and fairly broken down with affliction.

CHAPTER VI.

AFTER a long struggle Laurence had his own
way. There was to be a ball at the old Hall,
and every one was to be invited; even May
Sefton, whom yet Laurence dreaded to see under
his own roof, and even Clarke Jones, the vulgar
lawyer— his first invitation to the house. Laurence
undertook to frame the list of guests, indifferent
whether Annie liked them or not.
Hitherto her supremacy had been unquestioned,
but now she found herself on the losing side.

Annie resolved that the ball should be the
first and the last. She would make it impossible
for any one to come a second time. Accordingly,
she behaved with so bad a grace; showed
her temper so unequivocally; was so rude, so
bitter, so full of undisguised antagonism to her
husband; her arrangements were so insufficient,
and her conduct so extraordinary, that people
congregated in wondering groups about the
room: the initiated explaining to the outsiders
that Mrs. Grantley junior was crazy, and not
responsible for her actions, and that Dr. Downs
had ordered the ball to do her good, and rouse
her. Dr. Downs, who, for the most part,