this line, which I entreated him to carry to her:

'HONORED MISS DUDLEIGH--You will forgive me if
I overstep the bounds of friendship in yielding
to the inner voice which compels me to say that
if before or on your marriage day you need
advice or protection, you may command both from

Your respectful servant,
'MARK FELT.'

"I did not expect a reply to this note, and I did not receive any. I
thought I went as far as my position toward her allowed, but I have
questioned it since--questioned if I should not have told her what the
negro had heard and seen, and let her own judgment decide her fate. But
I was not in my right mind in those days. I was too much a part of all
this misery to be a fair judge of my own duty; and then the mysterious
nature of Miss Leighton's remark, the incomprehensibility of the
words--'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I shall give
you everything'--added such unreality to the scene, and awakened such
curious conjectures, that I did not know where any of us stood, or to
what especial misery the future pointed.

"'Till she was dead!' What could she, what did she mean? She would then
give him everything! Ah! ah!--when she was dead! Well, so be it.
Meanwhile, there was no prospect of death for any one, unless it was for
Miss Dudleigh, whom rumor acknowledged to be still fading, though
everything was being done for her comfort, and physician after physician
employed.

"I saw Caesar once again in these days. I met him in the street,
seemingly greatly to his delight, for he smiled till his teeth shone
from ear to ear, and made haste to remark, in quite a jovial voice:

"'I specs it's all right, massa. Massa Urquhart never looks at Miss
Leighton now, but always doin' his best for missus, making her smile
quite happy when she isn't coughing that dreadful cough. We will have a
gay wedding yet. Yes; Miss Leighton seems to spect that; for she all de
time making pretty things and trying them on missus, and laughing and
cheering her up, just as if she didn't spect any one to die.'

"Yes, but this change of manner frightened me. I grew feverishly
anxious, and spent night and day in asking myself unanswerable
questions. Nor did these in any way abate when one day I was startled by
the tidings that all preparations for refitting the great house had
stopped; that the doctors had decided that Miss Dudleigh must remove to
a w