“Nay, I don’t want to make an unnecessary fuss,” he said; “it is only a curiosity I have. Cold creeping up--it is disagreeable to think of it. What! I have I more medicine to take? What does Marsden mean by sending me his detestable compounds still? It will only make your bill the larger, and me the less comfortable. I will not have it; take it away.” “It is something different,” said Mrs. Damerel. “The doctor thought perhaps it might be worth trying.” “Is it the elixir of life?” said the patient, smiling; “nothing short of that would be worth trying; even that would be too much trouble for the good. It would be folly to come back now, when one has got over all the worst of the way.” “You do not feel worse, Herbert?” “Oh, no; when I tell you the worst is over, my anxious Martha! I am curious--curious--nothing more. I wish I could but tell you, after, what sort of a thing it was. Sit down by me, and give me your hand. Rose, you will be good; you will do everything your mother says?” “Oh, Herbert!” said his wife, “do not think of us--if it has come to this--think of yourself, think where you are going--to God, Herbert, dearest, to be happy beyond anything we can think.” “Is it so?” he said, still smiling. “I don’t know where I am going, my dear, and that is the only thing that gives me a little trouble. I should like to know. I am not afraid of God, who has always been far better to me than I deserved; and I hope I know the way of life.” This he said with a momentary seriousness which was quite exceptional. Then he added, in the musing tone which to his anxious watchers seemed almost a gentle delirium, “But think, my dear! to be sent even into a new place, a strange town, in the dark, without any direction--without knowing where to go, right hand or left.” He gave a little, soft, broken laugh. “It is the strangest way of dealing with curious, inquisitive creatures like men. I never realized it before.” Here some one appeared, beckoning behind the curtains, to say that Mr. Nolan was in the next room. The curate came daily, and was always admitted. Rose went softly out to meet him, and almost dropped into the kind man’s arms in her exhaustion and excitement. “He is talking so very strangely,” she said, the tears running down her pale cheeks. “Oh, Mr. Nolan, I think he is wandering in his mind! Should I send for the doctor? To hear him speak is enough to break one’s heart.” The good curate put her in a chair and soothed her, smoothing her pretty hair, with unconscious tenderness, as if she had been a child. “Don’t cry, dear,” he said; “or rather, do cry, poor child, it will do you good; and stay quiet till I come back.”