"It was our union," he told Vera. "It was my only marriage. As I sat day after day with her hand clasped in mine I knew that this was all I could ever know of marriage or of woman's love. From the day of her death I had done with the world; and all the rest of my days were given up to searching for those who had gone--for those who were in her world, not in mine. I have waited at the door, as your dog waits when he cannot see you, and as he believes that you are there, on the other side, so I believe and know that she is near me; and my days have known no other business or interest than my patient search into the books of all ages and nations that help the science of the future life, and the society of those people whom you have met in my rooms, and who think and feel as I do. I am a rich man, but I only use money for the relief of distress; and I have allowed myself no luxury or indulgence beyond my books, and the rooms that are large enough to hold them and me." * * * * * The hospital nurse sat in the adjoining room, with the door ajar. So far, and so far only, was the patient allowed the privilege of solitude. Someone must be always there, within hearing. When she had a visitor the door might be shut, but not otherwise. "There must be something very dreadful the matter with me," she said when Dr. Tower insisted upon this point. "No, my dear lady, there is nothing dreadful in a tired heart; but I don't want you to faint without anybody at hand to look after you." Vera assured him that she was not likely to faint, and made mock of his care. He had been very insistent upon certain points in his treatment, which he arranged with the general practitioner who had attended her for minor ailments in earlier days, when she was rarely in need of medical care. He would not allow her to go up and down stairs any longer. That ordeal must be at an end until she was stronger. He had the dining-room made into a bedroom for her use. All the gloomy old pictures and colossal furniture had been removed, and the walls were hung with delicate chintz, while the choicest things in her rooms upstairs had been brought down to make this ground-floor apartment pleasant for her--a room that smiled as it had never smiled before, even on those gala nights when a flood of light shone upon the splendour of Georgian silver, and Venetian glass, and diamonds, and fashionable women. "You are taking far too much trouble about me," Vera said, when first she saw this transformation. "We only want to save you trouble. The ascent to the second floor of this lofty house is almost Alpine. I wonder you never established an electric lift." "I never minded running up and down stairs."