learn at the sick-bed, the expression of her face altered suddenly; she
passed the hand I did not hold over her forehead, turned round, looked at
me full and long, with unmistakable surprise, yet not as if the surprise
displeased her,--less the surprise which recoils from the sight of a
stranger than that which seems doubtfully to recognize an unexpected
friend. Yet on the surprise there seemed to creep something of
apprehension, of fear; her hand trembled, her voice quivered, as she
said,--

"Can it be, can it be? Am I awake? Mother, who is this?"

"Only a kind visitor, Dr. Fenwick, sent by Mrs. Poyntz, for I was uneasy
about you, darling. How are you now?"

"Better. Strangely better."

She removed her hand gently from mine, and with an involuntary modest
shrinking turned towards Mrs. Ashleigh, drawing her mother towards
herself, so that she became at once hidden from me.

Satisfied that there was here no delirium, nor even more than the
slight and temporary fever which often accompanies a sudden nervous attack
in constitutions peculiarly sensitive, I retired noiselessly from the
room, and went, not into that which had been occupied by the ill-fated
Naturalist, but down-stairs into the drawing-room, to write my
prescription. I had already sent the servant off with it to the chemist's
before Mrs. Ashleigh joined me.

"She seems recovering surprisingly; her forehead is cooler; she is
perfectly self-possessed, only she cannot account for her own