Alfred followed eagerly to the door of the room, and stood there some seconds in breathless anxiety. It opened--the _soi-disant_ doctor was coming out, but drew back, as it were, to make way for our hero; who, from his evident and pitiable agitation, and his eager inquiries, he seemed to take for granted, was some one of the lady's near relations arrived at last, and of course entitled to enter the apartment of the invalid. Laying apparently asleep on a sofa visible from the door, Alfred could now discern Caroline: yet, though at the time in no state of mind for reflection, he so far felt himself unauthorized in his intrusion as to give an air of hesitation to his manner. "You can come in, sir," said the doctor, "there is no danger, I am sorry to say," he added with pompous solemnity, "of waking the patient." On hearing these alarming words, Alfred rushed to the side of the couch in so wild a manner, that the doctor, quite aghast, followed, and laying his hand on his arm, said, "You mistake me, sir: there is no reason to expect immediate dissolution; my meaning was, that you need not be apprehensive of interrupting the slumbers of the patient; her state being unhappily, not natural sleep, but a species of trance, becoming, I feel it, notwithstanding, my painful duty to say from its prolonged duration and the daily diminution of bodily strength, every hour more and more hopeless. From, in fact, the first moment of her sudden seizure up to the present time, she has not shed one tear, spoken one word; nor, as we have reason to believe, though in this constant state of apparent unconsciousness, ever actually slept; for, at any startling or unusual sound, her eyes have been observed to open, though but for a second." While the doctor, who was fond of hearing himself talk, had been thus holding forth, Alfred had stood gazing on the pale unconscious sufferer, in an agony of grief and compassion.