He looked wonderingly at her. After all, it was a new feature in her character--this dread of lovers. "That is not all, Earle," she said, clasping her soft, warm fingers round his hands. "I tell you--no one but you--this life is a little too much for me. Before I had recovered from the great shock of the change, I was plunged into the very whirlpool of London life. Do not imagine I have joined the list of invalids, or that I have grown nervous, or any nonsense of that kind: it is not so; but at times I feel a great failure of strength, a deadly faintness or weakness that is hard to fight against--a horrible foreboding for which I cannot account." Her face grew pale, and her eyes seemed to lose their light as she spoke. "I am sure," she continued, "that it is from over-fatigue. Do you not think so, Earle?" "Yes," he replied; "now, what is the remedy?" "I know the remedy. It would be to give all up for a time, and take a long rest--a long rest," her voice seemed to die away like the softest murmur of a sighing wind. Earle felt almost alarmed; this was so completely novel, this view of Doris, who had always been bright, piquant, and gay. "You shall go away, darling," he said, tenderly. "But, Earle," she said, "my father and Lady Linleigh are enjoying the season so much, they have so many engagements, I cannot bear to say anything about going." "Then I will say it for you. I shall tell Lord Linleigh, to-morrow, that you have exhausted yourself, and that you must have a few weeks of quiet at Linleigh Court." "What will he say, Earle?" "If I judge him rightly, darling, he will say little, but he will act at once; before this time next week you will be at Linleigh." "Do you really think so? I am so glad," yet she shivered again as she spoke. "I long to go to Linleigh, Earle, yet I have such a strange feeling about it, a strange presentiment, a foreboding; surely no evil, no danger awaits me at Linleigh. Do you know, I could fancy death standing at the threshold waiting with outstretched arms to catch me." Again her voice died away with a half-hysterical sob. Earle bent over her and kissed her. "My darling, you are fanciful, you are tired. I am so glad you have trusted me; it is high time you were attended to. These nervous fancies are enough to drive you mad; the evil has gone further than I thought. Doris, my love, my sweet, it is only the reaction from over-fatigue that gives you these ideas, nothing else; what awaits you but a future bright as your own beauty? What shall I live for except to love and to serve and to shield you?" "Earle," she cried suddenly, "do you know what I wish?" A long shining tress of golden hair had fallen over her shoulders, and she sat twining it round her white fingers. "Do you know what I wish?" she repeated. "No; if I did I should do it, you may be quite sure, Doris."