well think to win a star from
heaven as her. It was a conflict, but it was soon over: there was no
doubt about it, no uncertainty. He gave up the thought of her at once:
his peasant-girl had taken wings and soared into a region where he could
not follow.

He began to dress wearily, as people do when the zest of life has been
taken out of it: the world was not the world of yesterday, nor even the
world of last week, when he had been his own master and felt no want. If
only he had never seen her, or seen and known her only as the Lady
Louisa Moor, when the idea of loving her never would have occurred to
him--when she would simply to him have been a beautiful creature to look
at without exciting the shadow of a thought of appropriation, and not
the peasant-girl, the beautiful peasant-girl, he had thought he might
possibly win and wear!

While he was still dressing he saw a man in livery ride up to the door
and hand in a note, which was sent up to him at once. He opened it and
read:

"THE CASTLE, Tuesday.

"DEAR DOCTOR BRUNTON: Bell is much worse to-day. Could you make
it convenient to see her at five o'clock, when I shall be at
the lodge? I am glad I can write so that you will at least be
able to read this.

"I am yours sincerely,

"LOUISA MOOR."

He read this, and read it again, and yet again: it was frank, friendly
and familiar. Did it mean merely what the words stood for, or was it
possible--was it in the least degree possible--that she really cared for
him? It might mean everything or it might mean nothing. "But I shall see
when we meet," he thought as he laid it down.

He was at the lodge before five, and found the peasant-girl with the
amber beads there before him. He merely bowed to her, and went direct to
his patient, whom he examined closely: then he turned round and said
somewhat sharply, "She is not worse than when I saw her last."

"She appeared to me to be much worse," said the rustic maiden, coloring
ever so little.

"That may be," said the doctor, going to the window out of hearing of
the old woman. "Do you know," he said to the girl standing before him in
her short-gown and amber beads--"do you know that my visits here are of
no real use? I can do nothing. I can't fight with death, which is
certain to be the end before long. I shall make my visits very much more
seldom than I have done."

"Will you?" she said so