ld not answer save with her sympathetic look and
halting, tremulous breath; and these signs, he would not, could not
read, his own words had made such an echo in his ears.

"Ill! I cannot imagine Edith ill. I always see her in my thoughts, as I
saw her on that day of our first meeting; a perfect, animated woman with
the joyous look of a glad, harmonious nature. Nothing has ever clouded
that vision. If she were ill I would have known it. We are so truly one
that--Doris, Doris, you do not speak. You know the depth of my love, the
terror of my thoughts. Is Edith ill?"

The eyes gazing wildly into his, slowly left his face and raised
themselves aloft, with a sublime look. Would he understand? Yes, he
understood, and the cry which rang from his lips stopped for a moment
the beating of more than one heart in that little cottage.

"Dead!" he shrieked out, and fell back fainting in his chair, his lips
still murmuring in semi-unconsciousness, "Dead! dead!"

Doris sprang to her feet, thinking of nothing but his wavering, slipping
life till she saw his breath return, his eyes refill with light. Then
the horror of what was yet to come--the answer which must be given to
the how she saw trembling on his lips, caused her to sink again upon her
knees in an unconscious appeal for strength. If that one sad revelation
had been all!

But the rest must be told; his brother exacted it and so did the
situation. Further waiting, further hiding of the truth would be
insupportable after this. But oh, the bitterness of it! No wonder that
she turned away from those frenzied, wildly-demanding eyes.

"Doris?"

She trembled and looked behind her. She had not recognised his voice.
Had another entered? Had his brother dared--No, they were alone;
seemingly so, that is. She knew,--no one better--that they were not
really alone, that witnesses were within hearing, if not within sight.

"Doris," he urged again, and this time she turned in his direction and
gazed, aghast. If the voice were strange, what of the face which now
confronted her. The ravages of sickness had been marked, but they
were nothing to those made in an instant by a blasting grief. She was
startled, although expecting much, and could only press his hands while
she waited for the question he was gathering strength to utter. It was
simple when it came; just two words:

"How long?"

She answered them as simply.

"Just as long as you have been ill," said she; then, with no attemp