up in bed in her wonderment;
"of course not; why, how could it be? She has everything she can wish
for; and, I am sure, no woman could have a more devoted husband than
Colonel Damer. He has been speaking a great deal about her to me to-day,
and his anxiety is something enormous. On her _mind_!--what a funny
idea, Harry; what could have put that in your head?"

"I am sure I don't know," was the husband's reply, rather ruefully
given, as if conscious he had made a great mistake.

"You old _goose_," said his wife, with an emphatic kiss, as she composed
herself to her innocent slumbers.

But before they were broken by nature, in the gray of the morning, Mrs.
Clayton was roused by a tapping at the bedroom door; a tapping to which
all Mr. Clayton's shouts to "come in," only served as a renewal.

"Who can it be, Harry?--do get up and see," said Bella.

So Harry got up, like a dutiful husband, and opened the door, and the
figure of Colonel Damer, robed in a dressing-gown, and looking very
shadowy and unreal in the dawning, presented itself on the threshold.

"Is your wife here?" demanded the Colonel briefly.

"Of course she is," said Mr. Clayton, wondering what the Colonel wanted
with her.

"Will she come to Mrs. Damer? she is _very_ ill," was the next sentence,
delivered tremblingly.

"Very ill!" exclaimed Bella, jumping out of bed and wrapping herself in
a dressing-gown. "How do you mean, Colonel Damer?--when did it happen?"

"God knows!" he said, in an agitated voice; "but for some time after she
fell asleep she was feverish and excited, and spoke much. I woke
suddenly in the night and missed her, and going in search of her with a
light, found her fallen on the landing."

"Fainted?" said Bella.

"I don't know now whether it was a faint or a fit," he replied, "but I
incline to the latter belief. I carried her back to her bed, and gave
her some restoratives, not liking to disturb you--"

"Oh! why didn't you, Colonel Damer?" interposed his hostess.

"--and thought she was better, till just now, when she had another
attack of unconsciousness, and is so weak after it she cannot move. She
has fever too, I am sure, from the rapidity of her pulse, and I don't
think her head is quite clear."

"Harry, dear, send for Dr. Barlow at once," thrusting her naked feet
into slippers, "and come back with me, Colonel Damer; she should not be
left for a minute."

And she passed swiftly along the corridor to her cousin's room.