g of
suffocation, and drew great breaths,--she could not have said why,--but
she could not help it; and presently she became giddy, and had a great
noise in her ears, and rolled her eyes about, and was on the point of
going into an hysteric spasm. They called Dr. Hurlbut, who was making
himself agreeable to Olive just then, to come and see what was the
matter with Myrtle.

"A little nervous turn,--that is all," he said. "Open the window. Loose
the ribbon round her neck. Rub her hands. Sprinkle some water on her
forehead. A few drops of cologne. Room too warm for her,--that's all, I
think."

Myrtle came to herself after a time without anything like a regular
paroxysm. But she was excitable, and whatever the cause of the
disturbance may have been, it seemed prudent that she should go home
early; and the excellent Rector insisted on caring for her, much to the
discontent of Mr. William Murray Bradshaw.

"Demonish odd," said this gentleman, "wasn't it, Mr. Lindsay, that Miss
Hazard should go off in that way? Did you ever see her before?"

"I--I--have seen that young lady before," Clement answered.

"Where did you meet her?" Mr. Bradshaw asked, with eager interest.

"I met her in the Valley of the Shadow of Death," Clement answered, very
solemnly.--"I leave this place to-morrow morning. Have you any commands
for the city?"

("Knows how to shut a fellow up pretty well for a young one, doesn't
he?" Mr. Bradshaw thought to himself.)

"Thank you, no," he answered, recovering himself. "Rather a melancholy
place to make acquaintance in, I should think, that Valley you spoke of.
I should like to know about it."

Mr. Clement had the power of looking steadily into another person's eyes
in a way that was by no means encouraging to curiosity or favorable to
the process of cross-examination. Mr. Bradshaw was not disposed to press
his question in the face of the calm, repressive look the young man gave
him.

"If he wasn't bagged, I shouldn't like the shape of things any too
well," he said to himself.

The conversation between Mr. Clement Lindsay and Miss Susan Posey, as
they walked home together, was not very brilliant. "I am going
to-morrow morning," he said, "and I must bid you good by to-night."
Perhaps it is as well to leave two lovers to themselves, under these
circumstances.

Before he went he spoke to his worthy host, whose moderate demands he
had to satisfy, and with whom he wished to exchange a few words.

"And