"You are in pain," said I, softly. "Sit down and describe the
symptoms. Here, it is true, I am no professional doctor, but I am a
friend who is fond of doctoring, and knows something about it."

So we sat down a little apart from the other guests, and after a
few questions and answers, I was pleased to find that his "tic" did not
belong to the less curable kind of that agonizing neuralgia. I was
especially successful in my treatment of similar sufferings, for which I
had discovered an anodyne that was almost specific. I wrote on a leaf of
my pocketbook a prescription which I felt sure would be efficacious, and
as I tore it out and placed it in his hand, I chanced to look up, and saw
the hazel eyes of my hostess fixed upon me with a kinder and softer
expression than they often condescended to admit into their cold and
penetrating lustre. At that moment, however, her attention was drawn from
me to a servant, who entered with a note, and I heard him say, though in
an undertone, "From Mrs. Ashleigh."

She opened the note, read it hastily, ordered the servant to wait
without the door, retired to her writing-table, which stood near the place
at which I still lingered, rested her face on her hand, and seemed musing.
Her meditation was very soon over. She turned her head, and to my
surprise, beckoned to me. I approached.

"Sit here," she whispered: "turn your back towards those people, who are no
doubt watching us. Read this."

She placed in my hand the note she had just received. It contained but
a few words, to this effect:--

DEAR MARGARET,--I am so distressed. Since I wrote to you a few