of Julius's
organization impinged upon his own experience, now that he saw Julius
shrink from himself, he was shocked and offended. Julius, on his part,
was pitiably moved. He kept away from the bed; he fidgeted to and fro,
looking at this thing and that, without a sparkle of interest in his
eye, yet all with his own peculiar grace.

"You wanted to speak to me," he said. "Do you mind saying what you have
to say and letting me go?"

"I reckoned upon your staying to lunch," said Lefevre.

"I can't!--I can't!... Very sorry, my dear Lefevre, but I really can't!
Forgive what seems my rudeness. It distresses me that at such a time as
this my sensations are so acute. But I cannot help it!--I cannot!"

"You have been in the country,--have you not?" said Lefevre, beginning
with a resolve to get at something.

"I have just come back," said Julius. "My man told me you had called."

"Yes. My mother wrote in a state of great anxiety about you, and asked
me to go and look at you. She said that she and my sister had seen a
good deal of you lately; that you began to look unwell, and then ceased
to appear, and she was afraid you might be ill."

This was put forth as an invitation to Julius to expound not only his
own situation, but also his relations with Lady and Miss Lefevre, but
Julius took no heed of it. He merely said, "No; I was not ill. I only
wanted a little change to refresh me,"--and walked back to the window to
lave himself in the air.

"Well," continued Lefevre, "since I called to see you, I have had an
adventure or two. You never look at a newspaper except for the weather,
and so it is probable you do not know that I had brought to me yesterday
afternoon another strange case like that of the young officer a month
ago,--a similar case, but worse."

"Worse?" exclaimed Julius, dropping into the chair by the window, and
glancing, as a less preoccupied observer than the doctor would have
remarked, with a wistful desire at the door.

"Much worse--though, I believe, from the same hand," said Lefevre. "A
lady this time,--titularly and really a lady,--Lady Mary Fane, the
daughter of Lord Rivercourt."

"Oh, good heavens!" exclaimed Julius, and there were manifest so keen a
note of apprehension in his voice and so deep a shade of apprehension on
his face, that Lefevre could not but note them and confirm himself in
his suspicion of the intimate bond of connection between him and the
author of the outrage. He pitied Julius'