“I have just two more things to record at present. One is that my host is growing thinner and more hollow-eyed, and the other is that several times lately I have dreamed of hearing the strangest and sweetest music. It sounded like the playing of a violin by a master hand. I have been unable to determine whether I was really dreaming. One singular thing in connection with it is that when I looked for him the other night on his rugs before the fire after I had heard the music, or dreamed I heard it, he was not there. I tried to remain awake until he returned, for I wondered where he could be in the middle of the night, with the snow heaped up to the roof of the house and a fearful gale blowing cold outside, and I felt lonely and uneasy. But I went to sleep before he returned. I have no doubt, however, that he was on the other side of the rear door.” This ends, for the present, the extracts from the lady’s journal. CHAPTER SEVEN THE patient had so far recovered that she could be propped up in bed, where she straightened out the bungling work of her inexperienced hair-dresser, and made her glorious hair a fit embellishment of her beauty. She was pale, and her cheeks had lost the roundness and her eyes the brilliancy of their wont. But she was regaining the flesh that she had lost, and the brightness of spirit that her afflictions had dimmed; and her pallor only softened and refined a beauty that likely had been somewhat too showy in health. Something even better than that had been accomplished. It was not conceivable that her strong and rebellious spirit had been ever before brought under other than the ordinary restraints of a conventional life. She had developed the good sense to make the most of her present uncomfortable situation, and the will to bear its hardships. In the eyes of her host the superiority of her character entitled her to admiration, which he gave her simply and unconsciously, without any regard to her sex and beauty. Her acute insight had informed her of this admiration, and her spirit chafed under its character. One day she said,-- “It seems strange to me, Dr. Malbone, that you have never taken any interest in my past life.” He looked at her quickly and curiously, and somewhat awkwardly replied,-- “I did not wish to intrude, Miss Andros.” “Would that have been intrusion? I hadn’t thought of it.” “You must know that I feel an interest in everything that concerns you.” He said this readily, simply, and naturally, and she wondered if he was sincere. “Of course,” she went on, “lack of all companionship between us means mutual distrust.” This was a sharp thrust, and it found him unguarded. Then she saw that she had gone too far at the start; and this impression was confirmed when, after a pause, he remarked,--