She looked at him reproachfully, and went away without a word, to seat herself with her arm on the side of a chair, her hand supporting her brow. As a rule, the sufferer had made no sign during the opening and rebandaging, but this time he winced sharply at every touch, and the old housekeeper looked up questioningly. "Is that a bad sign?" she whispered, with her face all drawn and ghastly with fear. "No; a sign of greater vitality," said Chester, quickly, and the next minute he uttered a curious sibilation, for in removing the inner bandage, his fingers came in contact with something angular and hard, which he held up to the light and examined carefully. A quick, sharp breathing at his ear made him start round, to find that his every movement had been watched between the fingers of the hand which covered the watcher's face, and she had hurried to his side. "Worse?" she whispered faintly, too much exhausted now to display the intense agony and excitement of the earlier days of their intercourse. "No," he cried triumphantly. "Here is the cause--the enemy which has been fighting against us so long, and produced, I believe, those terrible convulsive attacks." Marion looked at him wonderingly, and her lips parted, but no words came. He read the question, though, in her eyes. "I ought to have known, and found it out sooner," Chester said bitterly, "and I feel that I am only a miserable pretender, after all. This piece of jagged lead, broken from the conical bullet by the explosion; it has remained behind causing all the trouble." "Ah! Then he will recover now?" "Yes," he said, as his eyes met hers; and if was some moments before they were withdrawn, both, in the pre-eminence of self at that moment, having taken no thought of the old housekeeper, who involuntarily made her presence known by uttering a deep sigh; and as Marion started and met her gaze, the old woman shook her head at her reproachfully. "Oh, my dear! my dear!" she said softly; "pray, pray think." Marion's brow contracted, and she walked slowly away, to take up her former position; while Chester winced and gave the old woman an angry look, as she now shook her head sadly at him. "No, doctor, no," she said softly; "that could never be. Please think only of your patient and your position of trust." "How dare you, woman!" he whispered angrily; for her words had gone home, and stung him more deeply than she could have realised. "Because I am not like an ordinary servant, doctor," she said, meeting his eyes unflinchingly. "I nursed her when she was a little child, and I have watched over her ever since. Yes, she is very beautiful, but that could never be." Chester bent over his patient with knitted brow and tightly-compressed lips, feeling the truth of the old woman's words, and ready to repeat them again mentally--that could never be.