his wiry pulse.

Wilford was very sick, and when next the surgeon came around he knew by
the bright, restless eyes that reason was tottering.

"Shall I send for your friends?" he asked, and Wilford answered,
savagely:

"I have no friends--none, at least, but what will be glad to know I'm
dead."

And that was the last, except the wild words of a maniac, which came
from Wilford's lips for many a day and night. When they said he was
dangerous, Marian Hazelton the "new nurse," sought and obtained
permission to attend him, and again the eyes of the other occupants of
the room were turned wonderingly toward her as she bent over the sick
man, parting his matted hair, smoothing his tumbled pillow, and holding
the cooling draught to the parched lips which muttered strange things in
her ear, talking of Brighton, of Alnwick and Rome--of the heather on the
Scottish moors, and the daisies on Genevra's grave, where Katy once sat
down.

"She did not know Genevra was there," he said. "She never guessed there
was a Genevra; but I knew, and I felt almost as if the dead were wronged
by that act of Katy's. Do you know Katy?" and his black eyes fastened
upon Marian, who, with the strange power she possessed over her
patients, soothed him into quiet, while she told him she knew Katy, and
talked to him of her, telling of her graceful beauty, her loving heart,
and the sorrow she would feel when she heard how sick he was.

"Shall I send for her?" she asked, but Wilford answered:

"No, I am satisfied with you," and holding her hand he fell away to
sleep.

This was the first day of her being with him, but there were other days
when he was not so quiet, when all her strength and that of Morris, who,
at her earnest solicitation, came to her aid, was required to keep him
on his bed. He was going home, he said, going back to Katy's; he had
punished her long enough, and like a giant he writhed under a force
superior to his own, and which held him down and controlled him, while
his loud outcries filled the buildings, and sent a shudder to the hearts
of those who heard them. As the two men, who at first had occupied the
room with him, were well enough to leave for home, Marian and Morris
both begged that unless absolutely necessary no other one should he sent
to that small apartment, where all the air was needed for the patient in
their charge. And thus the room was left alone for Wilford, who grew
worse so fast that Morris wrote to Katy, whi