"To him!" lying dead where he had been laid;
killed by the man who now asked for his
presence. Ellinor shut her eyes, and lay back in
despair. She wished she might die, and be out
of this horrible tangle of events.

Two minutes after, she was conscious of her
father and Miss Monro stealing softly out of the
room. They thought that she slept.

She sprang off the sofa, and knelt down.

"Oh, God," she prayed; "Thou knowest!
Help me! There is none other Help but Thee!"

I suppose she fainted. For an hour or more
afterwards, Miss Monro, coming in, found her
lying insensible by the side of the sofa.

She was carried to bed. She was not delirious,
she was only in a stupor, which they feared might
end in delirium. To obviate this, her father sent
far and wide for skilful physicians, who tended
her, almost at the rate of a guinea the minute.

People said how hard it was upon Mr.
Wilkins, that hardly had that wretch Dunster gone
off, with no one knows how much out of the
trusts of the firm, before his only child fell ill.
And, to tell the truth, he himself looked burnt
and scared with affliction. He had a startled
look, they said, as if he never could tell, after
such experience, from which side the awful
proofs of the uncertainty of earth would appear,
the terrible phantoms of unforeseen dread. Both
rich and poor, town and country, sympathised
with him. The rich cared not to press their
claims, or their business, at such a time; and
only wondered in their superficial talk, after
dinner, now such a good fellow as Wilkins could
ever have been deceived by a man like Dunster.
Even Sir Frank Holster and his lady forgot their
old quarrel, and came to inquire after Ellinor,
and sent her hothouse fruit by the bushel.

Mr. Corbet behaved as an anxious lover should
do. He wrote daily to Miss Monro to beg for the
most minute bulletins; he procured everything
in town that any doctor even fancied might
be of service. He came down as soon as there
was the slightest hint of permission that Ellinor
might see him. He overpowered her with tender
words and caresses, till at last she shrank away
from them, as from something too bewildering,
and past all right comprehension.

But one night before this, when all windows
and doors stood open to admit the least breath
that stirred the sultry July air, a servant on
velvet tiptoe had stolen up to Ellinor's open
door, and had beckoned out of the chamber of
the sleeper the ever watchful nurse, Miss Monro.

"A gentleman wants you," were all the words
the housemaid dared to say so close to the
bedroom. And softly, softly Miss Monro stepped
down the stairs, into the drawing-room; and
there she saw Mr. Livingstone. But she did not
know him; she had never seen him before.

"I have travelled all day. I heard she was
ill — was dying. May I just have one more look
at her? I will not speak; I will hardly breathe.
Only let me see her once again!"

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I don't know who
you are; and if you mean Miss Wilkins, by ' her,'
she is very ill, but we hope not dying. She was
very ill, indeed, yesterday; very dangerously ill,
I may say, but she is having a good sleep, in
consequence of a suporific medicine, and we are really
beginning to hope — "

But just here, Miss Monro's hand was taken,
and, to her infinite surprise, was kissed before
she could remember how improper such behaviour
was.

"God bless you, madam, for saying so. But
if she sleeps, will you let me see her; it can do
no harm, for I will tread as if on egg-shells; and
I have come so far — if I might just look on her
sweet face. Pray, madam, let me just have one
sight of her. I will not ask for more."

But he did ask for more, after he had had his
wish. He stole up-stairs after Miss Monro, who
looked round reproachfully at him if even a
nightingale sang, or an owl hooted in the trees
outside the open windows, yet who paused to say
herself, outside Mr. Wilkins's chamber-door,

"Her father's room; he has not been in bed
for six nights, till to-night; pray do not make a
noise to waken him." And on into the deep stillness
of the hushed room, where one clear ray of
hidden lamp-light shot athwart the floor, where
a watcher, breathing softly, sat beside the bed —
where Ellinor's dark head lay motionless on the
white pillow, her face almost as white, her form
almost as still. You might have heard a pin fall.
After a while he moved to withdraw. Miss
Monro, jealous of every sound, followed him,
with steps all the more heavy because they were
taken with so much care, down the stairs, back
into the drawing-room. By the bed-candle
flaring in the draught, she saw that there was the
glittering mark of wet tears on his cheek; and
she felt, as she said afterwards, " sorry for the
young man." And yet she urged him to go, for
she knew that she might be wanted up-stairs.
He took her hand, and wrung it hard.

"Thank you. She looked so changed — oh!
she looked as though she were dead. You will
write — Herbert Livingstone, Langham Vicarage,
Yorkshire; you will promise me to write. If I
could do anything for her, but I can but pray.
Oh, my darling! my darling! and I have no
right to be with her."

"Go away, there's a good young man," said
Miss Monro, all the more pressing to hurry him
out by the front door, because she was afraid of
his emotion overmastering him, and making
him noisy in his demonstrations. " Yes, I will
write; I will write, never fear!" and she bolted
the door behind him, and was thankful.

Two minutes afterwards there was a low tap;
she undid the fastenings, and there he stood,
pale in the moonlight.

"Please don't tell her I came to ask about
her; she might not like it."

"No, no! not I! Poor creature, she's not
likely to care to hear anything this long while.
She never roused at Mr. Corbet's name."

"Mr. Corbet's!" said Livingstone below his