pavement and passing among the crowd in search,
doubtless, of a fresh victim for occult experiment or outrage! That
conclusion once determined, shock after shock smote upon his sense. What
if the mysterious person were really proved to be Julius's father? What
if he had entered upon a course of experiment or outrage (he passed in
rapid review the mysteries of the Paris pavement and the Brighton train,
and this of the Park)--outrage yet unnamable because unknown, but which
would amaze and confound society, and bring signal punishment upon the
offender? And what--what if Julius knew all that, and therefore sought
to keep his parentage hidden?

"She is ready, doctor," said the Sister of the ward at his elbow, adding
with a touch of excitement in her manner as he turned to her, "do you
know who she is? Look at this card; we noticed the name first on her
linen."

Dr Lefevre looked at the card and read, "Lady Mary Fane, Carlton
Gardens, S.W."

"I suspected as much," said he. "Lord Rivercourt's daughter. It's a bad
business. She has been learning at St Thomas's the duties of nurse and
dresser, which accounts for her being in that uniform."

He went to the bed on which his new patient had been laid, and very soon
satisfied himself that her case was similar to that of the young
officer, though graver much than it. He wrote a telegram to Lord
Rivercourt, sent the house-physician for his electrical apparatus, and
returned to the bedside. He looked at his patient. He had not remarked
her hitherto more than other women of his acquaintance, though he had
sometimes sat at her father's table; but now he was moved by a beauty
which was enhanced by helplessness--a beauty stamped with a calm
disregard of itself--the manifest expression of a noble and loving soul,
which had lived above the plane of doubt and fear and gusty passion. Her
wealth of lustrous black hair lay abroad upon her pillow, and made an
admirable setting for her finely-modelled head and neck. As he looked at
this excellent presentment, and thought of the intelligence and activity
which had been wont to animate it, resentment rose in him against the
man who, for whatever end, had subdued the noble woman to that
condition, and a deep impatience penetrated him that he had not
discovered--had even scarcely guessed--the purpose or the method of the
subjugation!

It was, however, not speculation but action that was needed then. The
apparatus described in the case of the y