ed the hall, ran
wildly down a long passage, and flung open the door of the little
sitting-room which had been given to Eleanor for her own. With his foot
upon the threshold he paused for a second. He heard stealthy movements
in the hall, the front door softly opened and shut. On the floor before
him, white and motionless, Eleanor was lying.

He knew that this was Trowse's work; he ran to the front door with
murder in his heart but there was no sight of anyone. Marian, too, from
the drawing room had heard the door close softly.

Powers sat with Eleanor's hand in his, watching for her return to
consciousness. Her fingers lay in his, cold and passive, her hair was in
wild disorder, and her face was still deadly pale. He bent over the
closed eyes, and a fierce, passionate desire crept into his heart. If
only she might wake up as he had known her first. If only these terrible
months of her second existence might be blotted out forever. He was
content to have failed in his great experiment. He had no longer any
ambition to add to the sum of human knowledge. The memory of Halkar and
his patients had become a nightmare to him. Forever he would have been
content to remain ignorant of those things which lay now so short a
distance beyond. It was an unexpected lesson which he had learned, a
strange fever which had wrought so marvelous a transformation in him.
The old ideals were dead and buried, life itself had become centered
around the girl who lay by his side now, white and inanimate.

At last with a little shiver she opened her eyes.

* * * * *

Physically, Eleanor became at that time a puzzle both to Powers and to
the physician whom he called in to attend upon her. From an almost
animal perfection of health, she passed after her recovery from that
prolonged fainting fit into a state of nervous prostration, the more
remarkable from its contrast to her former robustness. She lost her
color, her light gracefulness of movement, her brilliant gaiety of
manner. She moved about listlessly, with pallid cheeks, and always with
a strange gleam in her eyes--of expectancy, mingled with apprehension.

"It is so absurd--so horrible--to look back--and to remember nothing,"
she said one day, with a little break in her voice. "I want to see some
one who really belongs to me--my father, or my uncle, or some one.
Perhaps that would help me--to remember."

"My dear," Powers said, "I am afraid that you would