hit the right nail on the head at last. You can't
possibly be more surprised at his remembering
you than I am. A word of advice, my dear.
When you are well enough to get up and see
Mr. Kirke, try how that sharp question of yours
sounds in his ears—and insist on his answering
it himself." Slipping out of the dilemma in
that characteristically adroit manner, Captain
Wragge got briskly on his legs again, and took
up his hat.

"Wait!" she pleaded. "I want to ask
you——"

"Not another word," said the captain. "I
have given you quite enough to think of for one
day. My time is up, and my gig is waiting for
me. I am off, to scour the country as usual. I
am off, to cultivate the field of public indigestion
with the triple ploughshare of aloes, scammony,
and gamboge." He stopped, and turned round
at the door. "By-the-by, a message from my
unfortunate wife. If you will allow her to
come and see you again, Mrs. Wragge solemnly
promises not to lose her shoe next time.  I
don't believe her. What do you say? May
she come?"

"Yes; whenever she likes," said Magdalen.
"If I ever get well again, may poor Mrs.
Wragge come and stay with me?"

"Certainly, my dear. If you have no objection,
I will provide her, beforehand, with a few
thousand impressions in red, blue, and yellow,
of her own portrait ('You might have blown
this patient away with a feather, before she took
the Pill. Look at her now!). She is sure to
drop herself about perpetually wherever she
goes, and the most gratifying results, in an
advertising point of view, must inevitably follow.
Don't think me mercenary—I merely understand
the age I live in." He stopped on his way out,
for the second time, and turned round once more
at the door. "You have been a remarkably
good girl," he said, "and you deserve to be
rewarded for it. I'll give you a last piece of
information before I go. Have you heard
anybody inquiring after you, for the last day or
two, outside your door? Ah, I see you have.
A word in your ear, my dear. That's Mr.
Kirke." He tripped away from the bedside, as
briskly as ever. Magdalen heard him
advertising himself to the nurse, before he closed the
door. "If you are ever asked about it," he
said, in a confidential whisper, "the name is
Wragge, and the Pill is to be had in neat boxes,
price thirteen-pence-halfpenny, government
stamp included. Take a few copies of the
portrait of a female patient, whom you might have
blown away with a feather before she took the
Pill, and whom you are simply requested to
contemplate now. Many thanks. Good morning."

The door closed, and Magdalen was alone again.
She felt no sense of solitude; Captain Wragge
had left her with something new to think of.
Hour after hour, her mind dwelt wonderingly
on Mr. Kirke, until the evening came, and she
heard his voice again, through the half-opened door.

"I am very grateful," she said to him, before
the nurse could answer his inquiries—"very,
very grateful for all your kindness to me."

"Try to get well," he replied, kindly. "You
will more than reward me, if you try to get
well."

The next morning, Mr. Merrick found her
impatient to leave her bed, and be moved to the
sofa in the front room. The doctor said he
supposed she wanted a change. "Yes," she
replied; "I want to see Mr. Kirke." The
doctor consented to move her on the next day,
but he positively forbade the additional excitement
of seeing anybody, until the day after.
She attempted a remonstrance—Mr. Merrick
was impenetrable. She tried, when he was gone,
to win the nurse by persuasion—the nurse was
impenetrable too.

On the next day, they wrapped her in shawls,
and carried her in to the sofa, and made her a
little bed on it. On the table near at hand,
were some flowers and a number of an illustrated
newspaper. She immediately asked who had
put them there. The nurse (failing to notice a
warning look from the doctor) said Mr. Kirke
had thought that she might like the flowers, and
that the pictures in the paper might amuse her.
After that reply, her anxiety to see Mr. Kirke
became too ungovernable to be trifled with. The
doctor left the room at once to fetch him.

She looked eagerly at the opening door. Her
first glance at him, as he came in, raised a doubt
in her mind, whither she now saw that tall figure,
and that open sunburnt face, for the first time.
But she was too weak and too agitated to follow
her recollections as far back as Aldborough.
She resigned the attempt, and only looked at
him. He stopped at the foot of the sofa, and
said a few cheering words. She beckoned to
him to come nearer, and offered him her wasted
hand. He tenderly took it in his, and sat down,
by her. They were both silent. His face told
her of the sorrow and the sympathy which his
silence would fain have concealed. She still
held his hand—consciously now—as persistently
as she had held it on the day when he found her.
Her eyes closed, after a vain effort to speak to
him, and the tears rolled slowly over her wan
white cheeks.

The doctor signed to Kirke, to wait and give
her time. She recovered a little and looked at
him:—"How kind you have been to me!" she
murmured. "And how little I have deserved
it!"

"Hush! hush!" he said. "You don't know
what a happiness it was to me to help you."

The sound of his voice seemed to strengthen
her, and to give her courage. She lay looking
at him with an eager interest, with a gratitude
which artlessly ignored all the conventional
restraints that interpose between a woman and a
man. "Where did you see me," she said,
suddenly, "before you found me here?"

Kirke hesitated. Mr. Merrick came to his
assistance.

"I forbid you to say a word about the past
to Mr. Kirke," interposed the doctor; and I