s in his dark dreamy eyes.

As De Vayne murmured to himself in low sentences, Kennedy heard
repeatedly the name of Violet, and once of Violet Home. He sat still as
death, and soon gathered from the young lord's broken words, his love,
his deep love for Julian's sister.

And when Kennedy first recognised this fact, which had hitherto been
quite unknown to him, for a moment a flood of jealousy and bitter envy
filled his heart. What if Violet should give up her troth in favour of
a wealthier, perhaps worthier lover? What if her family should think
his own poor claims no barrier to the hope that Violet should one day
wear a coronet? The image of Julian and Violet rose in his fancy, and
with one more pang of self-reproach, he grew ashamed of his unworthy
suspicions.

Yet the thought that De Vayne, too, had fixed his affections on Violet
filled him with uneasiness and foreboding, and he determined, on some
future occasion, to save pain to all parties, by getting Julian to break
to De Vayne the secret of his sister's betrothal.

For several days he came to the sick-room, and a woman could hardly have
been more thoughtful and tender than he was to his friend. It was on
about the fourth evening that De Vayne awoke to complete consciousness.
He became aware that some one besides his mother was seated in the room,
and without asking he seemed slowly to recognise that it was Kennedy.

"Is that Kennedy?" he asked, in a weak voice.

"It is I," said Kennedy, but the patient did not answer, and seemed
restless and uneasy and complained of cold.

When Kennedy went, De Vayne whispered to his mother, "Mother, I am very
weak and foolish, but it troubles me somehow to see Kennedy sitting
there; it shocks my nerves, and fills me with images of something
dreadful happening. I had rather not see him, mother, till I am well."

"Very well, Arthur. Don't talk so much, love; I alone will nurse you.
Soon I hope you will be able to return to Other."

"And leave this dreadful place," he said, "for ever."

"Hush, my boy; try to sleep again."

He soon slept, and then Lady De Vayne wrote to Kennedy a short note, in
which she explained as kindly and considerately as she could, that
Arthur was not yet strong enough to allow of any more visits to his
sick-room.

"He shuns me," thought Kennedy, with a sigh, and packing up some books
and clothes, he prepared to go home.

Of course he was to spend part of the vacation at Ildown. Violet