my poor little dear--my pretty little dear!" sobbed Ruth,
caressing the burning little hands that clung to her so tightly.

"Won't you hide me?" pleaded Daisy, laying her hot cheek against the
wrinkled hand that held hers. "Hide me, please, just as if I were your
own child; I have no mother, you know."

"God help the pretty, innocent darling!" cried the doctor, turning
hastily away to hide the suspicious moisture that gathered in his
eyes. "No one is going to harm you, little one," he said, soothingly;
"no one shall annoy you."

"Was it so great a sin? He would not let me explain. He has gone out
of my life!" she wailed, pathetically, putting back the golden rings
of hair from her flushed face. "Rex! Rex!" she sobbed, incoherently,
"I shall die--or, worse, I shall go mad, if you do not come back to
me!"

The three ladies looked at one another questioningly, in alarm.

"You must not mind the strange ravings of a person in delirium," said
the doctor, curtly; "they are liable to imagine and say all sorts of
nonsense. Pay no attention to what she says, my dear ladies; don't
disturb her with questions. That poor little brain needs absolute
rest; every nerve seems to have been strained to its utmost."

After leaving the proper medicines and giving minute instructions as
to how and when it should be administered, Dr. West took his
departure, with a strange, vague uneasiness at his heart.

"Pshaw!" he muttered to himself, as he drove briskly along the shadowy
road, yet seeing none of its beauty, "how strange it is these young
girls will fall in love and marry such fellows as that!" he mused.
"There is something about his face that I don't like; he is a
scoundrel, and I'll bet my life on it!"

The doctor brought his fist down on his knee with such a resounding
blow that poor old Dobbin broke into a gallop. But, drive as fast he
would, he could not forget the sweet, childish face that had taken
such a strong hold upon his fancy. The trembling red lips and pleading
blue eyes haunted him all the morning, as though they held some secret
they would fain have whispered.

All the night long Daisy clung to the hands that held hers, begging
and praying her not to leave her alone, until the poor old lady was
quite overcome by the fatigue of continued watching beside her couch.
Rest or sleep seemed to have fled from Daisy's bright, restless eyes.

"Don't go away," she cried; "everybody goes away. I do not belong to
any one. I