e felt that she had left her post
just as some terrible crisis had been about to happen.

For there, at the door where she had crouched in agony, waiting to know
the great physician's verdict, now stood Gerard Artis, gazing in as he
held it partly open.

Lydia was as if turned to stone for the moment. Then the reaction came,
and she quickly ran to the door, to lay her hand upon Artis's shoulder.

He turned upon her a face distorted with jealous rage, and then his
countenance changed, and, indulging in a malicious laugh, he drew on one
side, holding the curtain back, and pointed mockingly to the scene
within.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

AN ENCOUNTER.

One swift glance, and then, without noticing Artis, Lydia glided into
the room.

She had seen her hope crushed, and that she must never dream again of
that happy future. She had not slept, but she had left her post, and
while she had been absent another had stolen that last hope.

For, after lying sleeping calmly and peacefully for an hour, Capel
heaved a long sigh, and at last he opened his eyes, in a quiet, dreamy
way, gazing at, but apparently not seeing, Katrine, as she knelt there
in the light cast by the window.

Then she saw a look of intelligence come into his face, and he spoke in
a quiet and eager, though feeble tone.

"What is it? Why--why am I here? Don't--don't speak. Yes, I know.
Oh, Katrine, my love, my love!"

He raised his feeble arms, till they clasped the beautiful neck as she
bent down over him, and her head rested upon his pillow, side by side
with his; her soft dark hair half hid his pale cheek, and he was
whispering feebly his words of gratitude, as Lydia slowly advanced into
the room, and, unnoticed by either, she laid her soft, white hand upon
Katrine's shoulder, gripping it with a nervous force of which she
herself was ignorant.

Katrine started up, flushed, her eyes sparkling with light, and a look
of triumph coming into her face, as she saw who was there.

"Mr Capel's condition will not permit of this excitement," said Lydia,
in a cold, harsh voice. "Doctor Heston's orders were that he should be
kept quiet."

That afternoon, when Mr Girtle entered the library, he found a
plainly-dressed man awaiting him--a man who, save that he gave the idea
of having once been a soldier, might have passed for anything, from a
publican to an idler whose wife let lodgings, and made it unnecessary
for him to toil or spin.

"Morning, sir.