lovable. Her husband, a man of genius and
learning, gave her his whole heart— a heart
worth having; bnt he was not ambitious, and he
despised the world"

"I think you said your daughter was very
much attached to Miss Ashleigh? Does her
character resemble her mother's?"

I was afraid while I spoke that I should
again meet Mrs. Poyntz's searching gaze, but
she did not this time look up from her work.

"No; Lilian is anything but common-place."

"You described her as having delicate health;
you implied a hope that she was not consumptive.
I trust that there is no serious reason
for apprehending a constitutional tendency which
at her age would require the most careful
watching!"

"I trust not. If she were to die— Dr.
Fenwick, what is the matter?"

So terrible had been the picture which this
woman's words had brought before me, that I
started as if my own life had received a shock.

"I beg pardon," I said, falteringly, pressing
my hand to my heart; " a sudden spasm here—
it is over now. You were saying that—
that—"

"I was about to say—" and here Mrs.
Poyntz laid her hand lightly on mine. " I was
about to say, that if Lilian Ashleigh were to die,
I should mourn for her less than I might for one
who valued the things of the earth more. But
I believe there is no cause for the alarm my
words so inconsiderately excited in you. Her
mother is watchful and devoted; and if the least
thing ailed Lilian, she would call in medical
advice. Mr. Vigors would, I know, recommend
Dr. Jones."

Closing our conference with those stinging
words, Mrs. Poyntz here turned back into the
drawing-room.

I remained some minutes on the balcony,
disconcerted, enraged. With what consummate
art had this practised diplomatist wound herself
into my secret. That she had read my heart
better than myself was evident from that
Parthian shaft, barbed with Dr. Jones, which she
had shot over her shoulder in retreat. That
from the first moment in which she had decoyed
me to her side, she had detected " the something"
on my mind, was perhaps but the ordinary
quickness of female penetration. But it
was with no ordinary craft that her whole
conversation afterwards had been so shaped as to
learn the something, and lead me to reveal the
some one to whom the something was linked.
For what purpose? What was it to her? What
motive could she have beyond the mere gratification
of curiosity? Perhaps, at first, she
thought I had been caught by her daughter's
showy beauty, and hence the half-friendly, half-
cynical frankness with which she had avowed
her ambitious projects for that young lady's
matrimonial advancement. Satisfied by my
manner that I cherished no presumptuous hopes
in that quarter, her scrutiny was doubtless
continued from that pleasure in the exercise of a
wily intellect which impels schemers and
politicians to an activity for which, without that
pleasure itself, there would seem no adequate
inducement; and besides, the ruling passion of
this petty sovereign was power. And if
knowledge be power, there is no better instrument of
power over a contumacious subject than that
hold on his heart which is gained in the
knowledge of its secret.

But "secret!" Had it really come to this?
Was it possible that the mere sight of a human
face, never beheld before, could disturb the
whole tenor of my life— a stranger of whose mind
and character I knew nothing, whose very voice
I had never heard? It was only by the
intolerable pang of anguish that had rent my
heart in the words, carelessly, abruptly spoken,
"if she were to die," that I had felt how the
world would be changed to me, if indeed that
face were seen in it no more! Yes, secret it
was no longer to myself— I loved! And like all
on whom love descends, sometimes softly, slowly,
with the gradual wing of the cushat settling
down into its nest, sometimes with the swoop
of the eagle on his unsuspecting quarry, I
believed that none ever before loved as I loved;
that such love was an abnormal wonder, made
solely for me, and I for it. Then my mind
insensibly hushed its angrier and more turbulent
thoughts, as my gaze rested upon the roof-tops
of Lilian's home, and the shimmering silver of
the moonlit willow, under which I had seen her
gazing into the roseate heavens.

CHAPTER VIII.

WHEN I returned to the drawing-room, the
party was evidently about to break up. Those
who had grouped round the piano were now
assembled round the refreshment-table. The
card-players had risen, and were settling or
discussing gains and losses. While I was searching
for my hat, which I had somewhere mislaid,
a poor old gentleman, tormented by tic-doloreux,
crept timidly up to me—the proudest and
the poorest of all the hidalgoes settled on the
Hill. He could not afford a fee for a physician's
advice, but pain had humbled his pride, and I
saw at a glance that he was considering how to
take a surreptitious advantage of social
intercourse, and obtain the advice without paying the
fee. The old man discovered the hat before I
did, stooped, took it up, extended it to me with
the profound bow of the old school, while the
other hand, clenched and quivering, was pressed
into the hollow of his cheek, and his eyes met
mine with wistful mute entreaty. The instinct
of my profession seized me at once. I could
never behold suffering, without forgetting all
else in the desire to relieve it.

"You are in pain," said I, softly. " Sit down
and describe the symptoms. Here, it is true, I
am no professional doctor, but I am a friend who
is fond of doctoring, and knows something about
it."

So we sat down a little apart from the other
guests, and after a few questions and answers, I
was pleased to find that his " tic" did not belong
to the less curable kind of that agonising