A STRANGE STORY.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "MY NOVEL,"  "RIENZI," &c.

CHAPTER IX.

In a very few minutes I was once more in
the grounds of that old gable house. The servant,
who went before me, entered them by the stairs
and the wicket-gate of the private entrance;
that way was the shortest. So again I passed
by the circling glade and the monastic well—
sward, trees, and ruins, all suffused in the
limpid moonlight.

And now I was in the house; the servant
took up stairs the note with which I was
charged, and a minute or two afterwards
returned and conducted me to the corridor above,
in which Mrs. Ashleigh received me. I was the
first to speak. "Your daughter—is—is—not
seriously ill, I hope.  What is it?"

"Hush!" she said, under her breath. "Will
you step this way for a moment." She passed
through a doorway to the right. I followed
her, and as she placed on the table the light she
had been holding, I looked round with a chill at
the heart—it was the room in which Dr. Lloyd
had died. Impossible to mistake. The furniture,
indeed, was changed—there was no bed in
the chamber; but the shape of the room, the
position of the high casement, which was now
wide open, and through which the moonlight
streamed more softly than on that drear winter
night, the great square beams intersecting the
low ceiling—all were impressed vividly on my
memory. The chair to which Mrs. Ashleigh
beckoned me was placed just on the spot where
I had stood by the bed-head of the dying man.

I shrank back—I could not have seated myself
there. So, I remained leaning against the
chimney-piece, while Mrs. Ashleigh told her
story.

She said that on their arrival the day before,
Lilian had been in more than usually good
health and spirits, delighted with the old house,
the grounds, and especially the nook by the
Monk's Well, at which Mrs. Ashleigh had left
her that evening in order to make some purchases
in the town, in company with Mr. Vigors.
When Mrs. Ashleigh returned, she and Mr.
Vigors had sought Lilian in that nook, and
Mrs. Ashleigh then detected, with a mother's
eye, some change in Lilian, which alarmed her.
She seemed listless and dejected, and was
very pale; but she denied that she felt unwell.
On regaining the house she had sat down in the
room in which we then were—"which," said
Mrs. Ashleigh, "as it is not required for a
sleeping-room, my daughter, who is fond of
reading, wished to fit up as her own morning-
room, or study.  I left her here and went into
the drawing-room below with Mr. Vigors.
When he quitted me, which he did very soon,
I remained for nearly an hour giving directions
about the placing of furniture, which had just
arrived from our late residence. I then went
up-stairs to join my daughter, and to my terror
found her apparently lifeless in her chair. She
had fainted away."

I interrupted Mrs. Ashleigh here.  "Has
Miss Ashleigh been subject to fainting fits?"

"No, never.  When she recovered she seemed
bewildered—disinclined to speak. I got her to
bed, and as she then fell quietly to sleep, my
mind was relieved. I thought it only a passing
effect of excitement, in a change of abode;
or caused by something like malaria in the
atmosphere of that part of the grounds in which
I had found her seated."

"Very likely. The hour of sunset at this
time of year is trying to delicate constitutions.
Go on."

"About three-quarters of an hour ago she
woke up with a loud cry, and has been ever
since in a state of great agitation, weeping
violently, and answering none of my questions.
Yet she does not seem light-headed, but rather
what we call hysterical."

"You will permit me now to see her. Take
comfort—in all you tell me I see nothing to
warrant serious alarm."

CHAPTER X.

To the true physician there is an inexpressible
sanctity in the sick-chamber. At its threshold
the more human passions quit their hold on his
heart. Love there would be profanation.  Even
the grief permitted to others he must put aside.
He must enter that room—a Calm Intelligence.
He is disabled for his mission if he
suffer aught to obscure the keen quiet glance
of his science. Age or youth, beauty or deformity,
innocence or guilt, merge their distinctions
in one common attribute—human suffering
appealing to human skill.

Woe to the households in which the trusted
Healer feels not on his conscience the solemn