She might be,—but, at that moment, I could scarcely assert that I was a sharer of her joy.

 

‘I told you that if trouble overtook me I should come to you, and—I’m in trouble now. Such strange trouble.’

 

So was I,—and in perplexity as well. An idea occurred to me,—I would outwit her eavesdropping¹ father.

 

‘Come with me into the house,—tell me all about it there.’

 

She refused to budge².

 

‘No,—I will tell you all about it here.’ She looked about her,—as it struck me queerly. ‘This is just the sort of place in which to unfold a tale like mine. It looks uncanny.’

 

‘But—’

 

‘“But me no buts!” Sydney, don’t torture me,—let me stop here where I am,—don’t you see I’m haunted?’

 

She had seated herself. Now she stood up, holding her hands out in front of her in a state of extraordinary agitation³, her manner as wild as her words.

 

‘Why are you staring at me like that? Do you think I’m mad?—I wonder if I’m going mad.—Sydney, do people suddenly go mad? You’re a bit of everything, you’re a bit of a doctor too, feel my pulse,—there it is!—tell me if I’m ill!’

 

I felt her pulse,—it did not need its swift beating to inform me that fever of some sort was in her veins⁴. I gave her something in a glass. She held it up to the level of her eyes.

 

‘What’s this?’

 

‘It’s a decoction of my own. You might not think it, but my brain sometimes gets into a whirl. I use it as a sedative⁵. It will do you good.’

 

She drained the glass.

 

‘It’s done me good already,—I believe it has; that’s being something like a doctor.—Well, Sydney, the storm has almost burst. Last night papa forbade me to speak to Paul Lessingham—by way of a

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