visit to a conclusion. Although he refuses to confess it, I have
reason to believe that he has committed the folly of falling
seriously in love with the young girl at my lodge gate. I have
tried remonstrance in vain; and I write to his father at the same
time that I write to you. There is much more that I might say. I
reserve it for the time when I hope to have the pleasure of
seeing you, restored to health."


Two days after the receipt of this alarming letter Rothsay
returned to me.

Ill as I was, I forgot my sufferings the moment I looked at him.
Wild and haggard, he stared at me with bloodshot eyes like a man
demented.

"Do you think I am mad? I dare say I am. I can't live without
her." Those were the first words he said when we shook hands.

But I had more influence over him than any other person; and,
weak as I was, I exerted it. Little by little, he became more
reasonable; he began to speak like his old self again.

To have expressed any surprise, on my part, at what had happened,
would have been not only imprudent, but unworthy of him and of
me. My first inquiry was suggested by the fear that he might have
been hurried into openly confessing his passion to
Susan--although his position forbade him to offer marriage. I had
done him an injustice. His honorable nature had shrunk from the
cruelty of raising hopes, which, for all he knew to the contrary,