As she passed out I noticed a strange expression of care upon her beautiful face. I could not account for it, unless my earnestness had impressed her. Her point of view made the serious letters comedy for her at first; perhaps this was the reaction. There could be no reason for her agitation, based on her transient interest in Miss Tescheron, I imagined, for she had only met her for a few minutes at a time. It must have been my eloquence, the power of my dramatic art to so vividly portray the hideous Hosley that she became quite as much affected as if she had intimately known the criminal, and had followed his creeping, serpentine ways for bringing the next creature into his power. It rather pleased me to find that I could exercise this wonderful influence--a force so long latent in a superior intellectual equipment, obscured by a disenchanting personal appearance, especially unconvincing then, for I never looked particularly well in bed. A nurse I had not seen before brought my luncheon, and with it the letter, which I quickly recognized belonged to my thousand-dollar collection. "Your nurse sends this letter, which I am told is yours," said my new guardian. "She is ill and the doctor has ordered her to rest." "Ill? Why, I am very, very sorry to hear that," said I. "Tell me, please, how seriously ill she is. Only a moment ago she left here looking very pale. Do tell me about her." "Why, that is all I know." The next day I learned that Hygeia had gone to her home in Connecticut for a brief vacation. Something had happened; I did not know what. The doctor, it appears, advised that a vacation would be the thing. I could learn no more. I was able to get her address, and wrote a long letter to her, but no reply came. I began to doubt the strength of my magnetic power over her, so encouragingly demonstrated, and was utterly miserable again. Every other worldly interest became dim; the last ray of hope had gone and through the dark valley of despair I stumbled alone. Marshall, I learned, had left the same day Hygeia departed, but I did not care. I should not have spoken to him. I was in no humor to talk with him over that tame experience passed through while I was unconscious. When burning over a slow fire, a man is not fit for reminiscence. Two weeks later, after an illness of ten weeks, I was discharged from the hospital with all wounds healed except the one I received there, and perhaps that other--the maddening effect of Hosley's infidelity. CHAPTER XVI