from Mabel brought me to her side. She had fanned the fire with her
little cambric night-dress, and was already in a blaze. I caught Mrs.
Austin's heavy shawl from the bed, and promptly extinguished the flames,
but not without receiving serious injury myself. The child, with the
exception of a slight but painful burn on her ankle, was unhurt, but my
left arm and shoulder and bosom were fearfully burned, and for some days
my life hung on a thread.

Months passed before I was able to leave my own chamber, and the blow to
my health was so severe as to induce a return of those lethargic attacks
from which I had been entirely free for the last two years. It is true
they were brief in duration compared to those of old, but that they
should exist at all was a cause of anxiety and disquietude both to my
father and physician.

By the first of March, however, I was again in glowing health, and no
trace remained, except those carefully-concealed scars on my shoulder,
of my fearful injury.

Soon after this accident had occurred, two circumstances of interest had
taken place in our household and vicinity. One of these was the return
of Claude Bainrothe from abroad, and the other the rather mysterious
visit of a gentleman, young and handsome, but poorly clad, who had
inquired for my step-mother, Mrs. Constance Monfort, and on hearing, to
his surprise and grief, apparently, that she was dead, had gone away
again without requesting an interview with any other member of the
family.

He had met Evelyn at the door just as she was about to step into the
carriage, dressed for visiting, and had said to her, merely (as she