re stronger. I hope that you do not
make a trouble of that?" His eyes looked steadily into hers, and he
noted with pain the strange shadow that crossed them as he gazed.

"My uncle and his wife," she murmured, "will not let anybody know. They
are--they are ashamed of it, and of me. If I do not get better, they say
that I shall some day go out of my mind. Oh, it is terrible--terrible to
feel a doom of this sort hanging over one, and to know that nothing can
avert it! I had hoped that it was all over--that I should not have
another attack; but you see--you see that I hoped in vain! It is like a
black shadow always hanging over me, and nothing--nothing will ever take
it away!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

For a moment even the stout-hearted Rector was appalled. But Enid,
although she was watching him intently, could not read anything but
unfaltering sympathy and ready cheer in the glance that he gave her and
the words that rose almost immediately to his tongue.

"Courage! Doctors are very often wrong," he said. "Besides, I do not see
why such an ending should be feared, even if there were any
constitutional tendency of the kind in your family, which there is not."

"No," said Enid, less timidly than before; "I believe there is not. I
have asked."

"Your attacks are only nervous, my dear Miss Vane. The very fact of your
having--foolishly, I think--been, told the doctor's theories has made it
less possible for you to strive against the malady; and yet you say that
it has not made progress lately. You have not been ill in this way for
six months?"

"No, not for six months."

"Don't you see that the excitement and fatigue of to-day's expedition,
and the sad scene which we have just witnessed, would be likely to
increase any ailment of the nervous system? You must not argue anything
from what has happened to-day. Forgive me," the Rector broke off to say,
with a smile--"I am talking like a doctor to you, and my medical skill
is small indeed. It is only large enough to enable me to assure you,
Miss Vane, of my conviction that your fears are ungrounded, and that you
are tormenting yourself to no purpose. Will you try to take my advice
and turn your thoughts away from this unhappy subject?"

"I will try," answered Enid, with rather a bewildered look. "But," she
added a moment later, "I thought that I ought to be always on my guard;
and one cannot be on one's guard without thinking about the matter."

"Who told you that you