"Well! when you are tired of nursing him, come to me. I should like just to show Mrs. Murray what attractive metal her little niece is made of."

And, kissing Maud, who could hardly bring herself to return the salutation with proper warmth, Lady Louis took Herbert's arm, and suffered him to lead her to the carriage.

CHAPTER XIV.

"It is a lover's hell

To doubt and yet I falter-fear-Oh! Love
In all its extasy is mixed with dread-

Is troubled ever-there is so much to lose,
That the heart broods upon its airy treasure
As fearful as a miser o'er his gold."

King Arthur.

R. Murray was not the most consi

derate person

in the world. He

seemed to think everything must

bow to the convenience of him and

his; and, if it had been left to him, Maud would have passed the night, as she had done the entire day, in watching by Julian's bed of pain.

Mr. White put his veto on this. He came for the third time at midnight, and, since he had very discreetly possessed himself of Mrs. Murray's ear, he did pretty much as he liked, not unopposed, however, but having made up his mind to it; and,

really, anyone might have thought it was a pleasure to him to argue every point, for he never hesitated to indulge Mr. Murray with a long and wordy discussion on every arrangement; and certainly these loud contests were so far of service, in that they acted as a safety-valve for the anxiety, which would not permit Mr. Murray to eat, drink, or sleep, though he persisted in going through all the forms common to men of his settled habits.

It was Mr. White who dispatched Maud to bed, with an exordium respecting the regular life necessary to one who had the prospect of spending the larger portion of her waking hours in the heavy atmosphere of a sick room, and that for many days to come. He was very methodical and precise, which was fortunate, else half the establishment, in the excess of their goodwill, would have been sitting up with their young master; and, rather to Colonel Kennedy's disgust, he pitched upon fat, motherly Mrs. Benham to share the watch they were jointly to keep till morning broke.

Maud retired, but not to sleep; far into the night, with restless steps, Herbert paced the narrow limits of his sister's room. His excitement could not brook solitude and silence; and again and again he must pour the history of his love, his

hopes, his fears, into the sympathising ear of this ready listener.

There was a repose in Maud's gentle, feminine, loving ways, which fell like evening dew on his fevered spirits, still agitated by all the tumultuous joys, and fitful passions of the preceding hours. The fever, which is man's heritage, was on himthat engrossing fever, which to the few is life, but a living death, a long annihilation for the many. His flushed face, eager looks, and feverish accents, each and all betrayed in what fiery guise the pitiless destroyer had flown to Herbert's heart ; but for the time being he was happy, doubts, difficulties, and delays seeming as nothing in his present mood.

If Maud trembled for the stability of the happiness he felt so sure, her misgivings had hardly as yet taken a tangible form or shape; indeed, it was not till the moment when her brother told her his fate yet hung in abeyance, that Julian's warnings recurred to her memory in all their pristine meaning. His words lost nothing of their strength, in that he, who so lately uttered them, had, by one of those sudden chances, those startling and visible changes, which ever and again cross the path of man, abruptly passed from the bright sunlight of

vigorous existence, far down into the dark valley, where the shadowy confines of life and death meet and blend. Nor could she forget the Lady Louis of the preceding evening; cool and careless, luxurious and self-indulgent, full of care for her own selfish fancies, while hardly according one passing thought to the distress and sorrow which so nearly touched others; forgetting even the agony of witnessed suffering, so soon as its reality had passed from her own sight. The halo had been glowing enough, with which, for four-and-twenty hours, Maud's imagination had invested the object of Herbert's worship, and, under ordinary circumstances, it might have lived on, blinding, by its very brightness, her acute senses to faults, which, veiled beneath the courtesies of a studied manner, were graceful, even in their deformity.

With Herbert the illusion was still complete, and, whatever her own judgment might lead her to think, his sister did not feel competent to the task of combating such strong prepossessions. She wondered whether she could and ought to speak; but, after all, as she reflected, what had she to allege against Lady Louis Crichton? Facts there were none; she had only Julian's opinion, and her own intuitive feeling to go upon; and Herbert