never have believed that his round, optimistic face could look so
worried. I read the worst in it; Glendenning was right; but I asked the
doctor, quite as if I did not know, whether there was anything serious
the matter.

"Serious--yes," he said. "Get in with me; I have to see another patient,
but I'll bring you back." We mounted into his buggy, and he went on.
"She's in no immediate danger, now. The faint lasted so long I didn't
know whether we should bring her out of it, at one time, but the most
alarming part is over for the present. There is some trouble with the
heart, but I don't think anything organic."

"Yes, I heard you telling her daughter so, just before lunch. Isn't it a
frequent complication with asthma?"

"Asthma? Her daughter? Whom are you talking about?"

"Mrs. Bentley. Isn't Mrs. Bentley--"

"No!" shouted the doctor, in disgust, "Mrs. Bentley is as well as ever.
It's Miss Bentley. I wish there was a thousandth part of the chance for
her that there is for her mother."


XIV.

I stayed over for the last train to Boston, and then I had to go home
without the hope which Miss Bentley's first rally had given the doctor.
My wife and I talked the affair over far into the night, and in the
paucity of particulars I was almost driven to their invention. But I