"I shall never give _him_ up," said Rachel quietly; "never, if I live to be a hundred. I have told Aunt Elizabeth--I told her to tell Mr. Kingston--that I shall never love any other man. It would be impossible, after loving him. When I am well I shall ask her to let me go out and be a governess, and earn my own living. I don't want to be rich, I want to be poor, like him. And some day, perhaps, I may see him again, and be able to do something for him--if it isn't till he is an old, old man, I don't care. If only God lets him live and lets me live, so that we are both in the world together--I'll take my chance of the rest. But--but," and she turned her head from side to side, and began to tremble and cry in a weak, hysterical abandonment of all self-command, "if I have to wait for years and years, without a sight of his face or a sound of his voice, how shall I be able to live? The longing for him will kill me!" Mrs. Reade went away when her carriage returned, more humble-minded than she had been in her life. She wanted very much to stay and nurse her cousin until she was better, but she could not do that, because she could not trust Ned to keep house and keep sober by himself; so she set off to see the doctor to get a confidential report of the "case," meaning to intimate her suspicions that there was a touch of fever on the brain, and to gain his sanction to a scheme for removing the invalid to her own cheerful abode at South Yarra as soon as she became moderately convalescent. CHAPTER XIII. RACHEL ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE. Probably no girl of nineteen--probably no man or woman of any age--ever died of a broken heart, unless when that complaint was complicated and aggravated by the presence of physical disease of some sort. Rachel's constitution was sound, albeit her nervous organisation was extremely delicate, and she did not die, neither under this bitter first blow, nor later on, when she had still sharper provocations. A little tender petting and coddling at the hands of her cousin Beatrice, who was now her devoted ally and friend, did more to restore her than all the doctor's medicines and all her aunt's jellies and broths. The very talking of her troubles eased and soothed her, and gave her a sense of refreshment and rest, and though Beatrice offered her no encouragement on Mr. Dalrymple's behalf--and indeed hinted pretty broadly that the terrible thing which had happened was an inevitable sequel and corrective to a lapse of reason that partook of the character of temporary insanity, to say the least of it--she was heartily if not demonstratively sympathetic. Within a fortnight of her cousin's return she reached that stage of convalescence which made the removal to South Yarra justifiable, and in the doctor's opinion expedient. Mrs. Reade had great difficulty in carrying out this little enterprise. Her mother had never shown herself so impracticable.