med
changed. 'John, you look ill!' she almost sobbed. ''Tisn't me, is it?'

'O dear, no. Though I hadn't, somehow, expected it. I can't find fault
with you for a moment--and I don't . . . This is a deuce of a long dance,
don't you think? We've been at it twenty minutes if a second, and the
figure doesn't allow one much rest. I'm quite out of breath.'

'They like them so dreadfully long here. Shall we drop out? Or I'll
stop the fiddler.'

'O no, no, I think I can finish. But although I look healthy enough I
have never been so strong as I formerly was, since that long illness I
had in the hospital at Scutari.'

'And I knew nothing about it!'

'You couldn't, dear, as I didn't write. What a fool I have been
altogether!' He gave a twitch, as of one in pain. 'I won't dance again
when this one is over. The fact is I have travelled a long way to-day,
and it seems to have knocked me up a bit.'

There could be no doubt that the sergeant-major was unwell, and Selina
made herself miserable by still believing that her story was the cause of
his ailment. Suddenly he said in a changed voice, and she perceived that
he was paler than ever: 'I must sit down.'

Letting go her waist he went quickly to the other room. She followed,
and found him in the nearest chair, his face bent down upon his hands and
arms, which were resting on the table.

'What's the matter?' said her father, who sat there dozing by the fire.

'John isn't well . . . We are going to New Zealand when we are married,
father. A lovely country! John, would you like something to drink?'

'A drop o' that Schiedam of old Owlett's, that's under stairs, perhaps,'
suggested her father. 'Not that nowadays 'tis much better than licensed
liquor.'

'John,' she said, putting her face close to his and pressing his arm.
'Will you have a drop of spirits or something?'

He did not reply, and Selina observed that his ear and the side of his
face were quite white. Convinced that his illness was serious, a growing
dismay seized hold of her. The dance ended; her mother came in, and
learning what had happened, looked narrowly at the sergeant-major.

'We must not let him lie like that, lift him up,' she said. 'Let him
rest in the window-bench on some cushions.'

They unfolded his arms and hands as they lay clasped upon the table, and
on lifting his head found his features to bear the very impress of death
itself. Bartholomew Miller, who had now come in, ass