“Sir Edward Trevor, M.P. I know it's foolish, but it's the foolishness of love, dear, so don't look cross; you are everything to me, and no one loves you as I do.” What are they slowing for now? There's no station. Did ever train drag like this one? Off again, thank God... if she only were conscious, and he could ask her to forgive his selfishness. At last, and the train glides into Victoria. No, he had nothing to declare; would they let him go, or they might keep his luggage altogether. Some vision was ever coming up, and now he saw her kneeling on the floor and packing that portmanteau, the droop of her figure, her thin white hands. He was so busy that she did these offices for him--tried to buckle the straps even; but he insisted on doing that It gave him half an hour longer at the Club. What a brute he had been.... “Do anything you like with my things. 'I'll come to-morrow... as fast as you can drive.” Huddled in a corner of the hansom so that you might have thought he slept, this man was calculating every foot of the way, gloating over a long stretch of open, glistening asphalt, hating unto murder the immovable drivers whose huge vans blocked his passage. If they had known, there was no living man but would have made room for him... but he had not known himself.... Only one word to tell her he knew now. As the hansom turned into the street he bent forward, straining his eyes to catch the first glimpse of home. Had it been day-time the blinds would have told their tale; now it was the light he watched. Dark on the upper floors; no sick light burning... have mercy... then the blood came back to his heart with a rush. How could he have forgotten? Their room was at the back for quietness, and it might still be well. Some one had been watching, for the door was instantly opened, but he could not see the servant's face. A doctor came forward and beckoned him to go into the study.... It seemed as if his whole nature had been smitten with insensibility, for he knew everything without words, and yet he heard the driver demanding his fare, and noticed that the doctor had been reading the evening paper while he waited; he saw the paragraph about that seat What work those doctors have to do.... “It was an hour ago... we were amazed that she lived so long; with any other woman it would have been this morning; but she was determined to live till you came home. “It was not exactly will-power, for she was the gentlest patient I ever had; it was”--the doctor hesitated--a peremptory Scotchman hiding a heart of fire beneath a coating of ice--“it was simply love.” When the doctor had folded up the evening paper, and laid it on a side table, which took some time, he sat down opposite that fixed, haggard face, which had not yet been softened by a tear.