"No wonder; but you are only tired, not ill,
are you?" she asked, with sudden alarm. "O,
Philip, how hot your head is!"

She noticed, too, that he only played with the
food which Isott had carefully prepared, and at
length he owned that it was of no use to try to
eat it.

"But don't look so scared, Elsie," he said,
smiling. "My hour has not struck yet."

"I can't get out of the trick of feeling
anxious," she returned; "though it is very
faithless of me, when you have so many prayers
to guard you. If you could hear, Philip, how
these poor mothers speak of you! They are so
grateful!"

"Grateful? God help them, poor wretches!
they've little enough to be grateful to me for,"
said Mr. Denbigh, heavily. "How many of
them find life so pleasant, do you think, that
they need be very overpowering in their
thankfulness?"

"Most of them; nearly all, I am sure.
The poorest of them have something to love,
and, therefore, something to live for. Surely,
Philip, you and I, of all people, should never
talk as if life were not worth having."

"May be so; but for my part, with every
case I brought round, I wondered if the child—
they were most of them children, you know—
wouldn't live to curse me for not letting it die."

"Oh! Of a child one may sometimes feel
that, but it is a faithless feeling still, is it not?
God, who has allowed you to save them, has
surely done so for some good wise purpose,
and for their own happiness."

"It is all a lottery," said Mr. Denbigh,
gloomily; "the circumstances make the saint or
the sinner. Do you suppose that Cain or Judas,
or any others whose names are a by-word for
all that is bad, were really one whit worse
than dozens and hundreds of respectable folks,
who have lived respected, and had all the shops
shut on their funeral day? Not they. It all
depends on the amount of temptation that is
thrown in a man's way, whether he stands or
falls."

"But surely," said Elsie, rather bewildered,
"it is not as if we were at the mercy of
chance; surely God sends all our trials
according to what He knows to be best for us?"

"Yes, that is the correct theory, I know, and
certainly a comfortable one, doing away with
any semblance of human responsibility. If
omnipotence and omniscience arrange all the
scenes of the play, well and good. Man is
only a puppet in their hands; let them look
to it."

He spoke bitterly and incoherently, and Elsie
was silent a moment, shocked at his
expressions.

"I do not know you to-night, Philip," she
then said, looking anxiously in his face; "you
are tired out. Won't you go to bed? Think
how long it is since you have had a night's
unbroken rest. You will take a more hopeful
view of life and of your fellow-creatures,
to-morrow, I am sure."

"It is longer still since I have heard you
sing," he answered. "Have not you a book of
solemn old chants somewhere? I am not in
tune for anything else to-night."

She searched among her music, and presently
her sweet low voice began to chant the Dies
Iræ, with a mournful pathetic expression,
which peculiarly suited the grand old melody
and the touching words, in which faith and hope
are struggling with something akin to despair.
Her husband leaned his head on his hand, as he
listened intently to the passionate pleading of
every solemn verse.

     Seeking me Thy worn feet hasted,
     On the cross Thy soul death tasted;
     Let not all those toils be wasted!

sang Elsie, and, as the last notes died away, he
rose abruptly, saying,

"I am tired out, Elsie, and my head aches.
I will go to bed."

His wife soon followed him, but before midnight
she was at Isott's door with a frightened
summons. He had awakened from a short sleep
to find the pain in his head violently increased,
and was in a state of so much fever, that Mrs.
Denbigh was dreadfully frightened. He was
quite conscious, however, and would not hear
of her sending for Mr. Scott; indeed she had
not confidence enough in Mr. Scott's skill to
care to press the matter; and she was presently
comforted by Isott's pronouncing that he
was merely over-tired, and recommending that
universal panacea, a cup of tea. It did him
good, for he fell into a sleep. It was so
uneasy a one, however, that Mrs. Denbigh
would not risk disturbing him by lying down
again herself, but joined the old servant, who
sat keeping watch over the teapot by the fire in
the dressing-room.

"He seems to be dreaming very miserably,
and he is so feverish," she whispered. "Do
you really think it is not going to be anything
bad?"

"Lor bless ye, no," said Isott, reassuringly;
"he be just a downright tired out, that's what
he be. To my mind, he han't been really like
hisself this ever so long."

"I have sometimes thought that too," said
Elsie, too frightened not to speak plainly to this
tried old friend of her husband's. "I have
fancied him out of spirits, oh! this long time."
And she glanced through the open door at the
bed where he lay, his countenance looking most
careworn and haggard in his uneasy sleep.

"My dear," said Isott, in a mysterious
whisper, "he do love ye better 'n anything as
ever he've a got; whatever be a troubling of
him, it baint nothing as you've got a call to be
jealous of; you be sure of that."

"Oh, surely yes," Elsie said, smiling at the
preposterous idea that she could be jealous.

"Well, then," the old woman went on, "supposin'
he've a got some secret as he do keep
from ye, it baint nothing of that sort, and may
be, if he'd take courage, and up and tell ye, he'd
be a deal easier once 'twas over."