tion so as not to
affront him,--declined it, not as I should once have done, but with no
word nor look of incredulous disdain. The fact was, that I had conceived
a solemn terror of all practices and theories out of the beaten track of
sense and science. Perhaps in my refusal I did wrong. I know not. I was
afraid of my own imagination. He continued not less friendly in spite
of my refusal. And, such are the vicissitudes in human feeling, I
parted from him whom I had regarded as my most bigoted foe with a warmer
sentiment of kindness than for any of those on whom I had counted on
friendship. He had not deserted Lilian. It was not so with Mrs. Poyntz.
I would have paid tenfold the value of the testimonial to have erased,
from the list of those who subscribed to it, her husband's name.

The day before I quitted L----, and some weeks after I had, in fact,
renounced my practice, I received an urgent entreaty from Miss Brabazon
to call on her. She wrote in lines so blurred that I could with
difficulty decipher them, that she was very ill, given over by Dr.
Jones, who had been attending her. She implored my opinion.

CHAPTER LXVII.

On reaching the house, a formal man-servant, with indifferent face,
transferred me to the guidance of a hired nurse, who led me up the
stairs, and, before I was well aware of it, into the room in which Dr.
Lloyd had died. Widely different, indeed, the aspect of the walls, the
character of the furniture! The dingy paperhangings were replaced by
airy muslins, showing a rose-coloured ground through their fanciful
openwork; luxurious fauteuils, gilded wardrobes, full-length mirrors, a
toilet-table tricked out with lace and ribbons; and glittering with an
array of silver gewgaws and jewelled trinkets,--all transformed the sick
chamber of the simple man of science to a boudoir of death for the vain
coquette. But the room itself, in its high lattice and heavy ceiling,
was the same--as the coffin itself has the same confines, whether it be
rich in velvets and bright with blazoning, or rude as a pauper's shell.

And the bed, with its silken coverlet, and its pillows edged with the
thread-work of Louvain, stood in the same sharp angle as that over which
had flickered the frowning smoke-reek above the dying, resentful foe.
As I approached, a man, who was seated beside the sufferer, turned round
his face, and gave me a silent kindly nod of recognition. He was Mr.
C----, one of the clergy of the town, t