me,
like the rest of them? I tried to raise myself, and get on my feet.
The stranger gently pressed me back again on the pillow. I attempted to
resist him--quite uselessly, of course. His firm hand held me as gently
as ever in my place.

"You must rest a little," he said. "You must take some wine. If you
exert yourself now you will faint again."

Old Benjamin stooped over me, and whispered a word of explanation.

"It's the doctor, my dear. You must do as he tells you."

The doctor! They had called the doctor in to help them! I began dimly
to understand that my fainting fit must have presented symptoms far more
serious than the fainting fits of women in general. I appealed to the
doctor, in a helpless, querulous way, to account to me for my husband's
extraordinary absence.

"Why did you let him leave the room?" I asked. "If I can't go to him,
why don't you bring him here to me?"

The doctor appeared to be at a loss how to reply to me. He looked at
Benjamin, and said, "Will you speak to Mrs. Woodville?"

Benjamin, in his turn, looked at Major Fitz-David, and said, "Will
_you?_" The Major signed to them both to leave us. They rose together,
and went into the front room, pulling the door to after them in its
grooves. As they left us, the girl who had so strangely revealed my
husband's secret to me rose in her corner and approached the sofa.

"I suppose I had better go too?" she said, addressing Major Fitz-David.

"If you please," the Major answered.

He spoke (as I thought) rather coldly. She tossed her head, and turned
her back on him in high indignation. "I must say a word for myself!"
cried this strange creature, with a hysterical outbreak of energy. "I
must say a word, or I shall burst!"

With that extraordinary preface, she suddenly turned my way and poured
out a perfect torrent of words on me.

"You hear how the Major speaks to me?" she began. "He blames me--poor
Me--for everything that has happened. I am as innocent as the new-born
babe. I acted for the best. I thought you wanted the book. I don't know
now what made you faint dead away when I opened it. And the Major blames
Me! As if it was my fault! I am not one of the fainting sort myself; but
I feel it, I can tell you. Yes! I feel it, though I don't faint about
it. I come of respectable parents--I do. My name is Hoighty--Miss
Hoighty. I have my own self-respect; and it's wounded. I say my
self-respect is wounded, when I find myself blamed without de