something about her case which puzzled and perplexed him. "She
needed perfect quiet, but must not be left alone," he said, and so all
that night Richard, who was very wakeful, watched the light shining out
into the hall from the room next to his own, and heard occasionally a
murmur of low voices as the nurse put some question to Ethie, who
answered always in whispers, while her eyes turned furtively toward No.
102, as if fearful that its occupant would hear and know how near she
was. For three whole days her door was locked against all intruders, for
the headache and nervous excitement did not abate one whit. How could
they, when every sound from No. 102, every footfall on the floor, every
tone of Richard's voice speaking to servant or physician, quickened the
rapid beats and sent the hot blood throbbing fiercely through the temple
veins and down along the neck? At Clifton they are accustomed to every
phase of nervousness, from spasms at the creaking of a board to the
stumbling upstairs of the fireman in the early winter morning, and once
when Ethie shuddered and turned her head aside at the sound of Richard's
step, the attendant said to the physician:

"It's the gentleman's boots, I think, which make her nervous."

There was a deprecating gesture on Ethie's part, but it passed
unnoticed, and when next the doctor went to visit Richard he said, in a
half-apologetic way, that the young lady in the next room was suffering
from a violent headache, which was aggravated by every sound, even the
squeak of a boot--would Governor Markham greatly object to wearing
slippers for a while? Dr. Hayes was sorry to trouble him, but "if they
would effect a cure they must keep their patients quiet, and guard
against everything tending to increase nervous irritation."

Governor Markham would do anything in his power for the young lady, and
he asked some questions concerning her. Had he annoyed her much? Was she
very ill? And what was her name?

"Bigelow," he repeated after Dr. Hayes, thinking of Aunt Barbara in
Chicopee, and thinking of Ethelyn, too, but never dreaming how near she
was to him.

He had come to Clifton at the earnest solicitation of some of his
friends, who had for themselves tested the healing properties of the
water, but he had little faith that anything could cure so long as the
pain was so heavy at his heart. It had not lessened one jot with the
lapse of years. On the contrary, it seemed harder and harder to bear, as