o her quivering sense some slight indefinable
change--coldness--had passed into it.

"He _is_ better, thank you--for the present. And my mother does not let
me do very much. We have a nurse too. When shall I come?"

He rose.

"Could you--come to-morrow afternoon? There is to be a consultation of
doctors in the morning, which will tire him. About six?--that was what
he said. He is very weak, but in the day quite conscious and rational.
My aunt begged me to say how glad she would be--"

He paused. An invincible awkwardness took possession of both of them.
She longed to speak to him of his grandfather but could not find the
courage.

When he was gone, she, standing alone in the firelight, gave one
passionate thought to the fact that so--in this tragic way--they had met
again in this room where he had spoken to her his last words as a lover;
and then, steadily, she put everything out of her mind but her
friend--and death.

CHAPTER II.

Mrs. Boyce received Marcella's news with more sympathy than her daughter
had dared to hope for, and she made no remark upon Aldous himself and
his visit, for which Marcella was grateful to her.

As they left the dining-room, after their short evening meal, to go up
to Mr. Boyce, Marcella detained her mother an instant.

"Mamma, will you please not tell papa that--that Lord Maxwell came here
this afternoon? And will you explain to him why I am going there
to-morrow?"

Mrs. Boyce's fair cheek flushed. Marcella saw that she understood.

"If I were you, I should not let your father talk to you any more about
those things," she said with a certain proud impatience.

"If I can help it!" exclaimed Marcella. "Will you tell him,
mamma,--about Mr. Hallin?--and how good he has been to me?"

Then her voice failed her, and, hurriedly leaving her mother at the top
of the stairs, she went away by herself to struggle with a grief and
smart almost unbearable.

That night passed quietly at the Court. Hallin was at intervals slightly
delirious, but less so than the night before; and in the early morning
the young doctor, who had sat up with him, reported him to Aldous as
calmer and a little stronger. But the heart mischief was hopeless, and
might bring the bruised life to an end at any moment.

He could not, however, be kept in bed, owing to restlessness and
difficulty of breathing, and by midday he was in Aldous's sitting-room,
drawn close to the window, that he might delight his eye