“I must be dreaming! It is a land of visions here; I have lost control over my own senses;” said Hardcastle, aloud, as he pressed forward to get a nearer view of what seemed to him an illusion. Two figures at such a time, in such a scene of loneliness and solitude! Nearer and nearer he drew. What did he see? Breathless and nerveless he leaned forward deprived alike of speech and power. Mountains, crags and sunlight swam before his eyes and faded away into mist, while the words of Mr. Warden, in the study of Harleyford, rang and echoed in his ears. “I can see her now—see her as she stood the first day I saw her in the lonely mountain country. Her feet on the black-red lava, the glowing sunset behind her head, her rich dark beauty flashing back every gold and crimson ray. The long white robe she wore, and the dark-faced nurse by her side.” There, straight in front of him, was the literal realization of the picture in all its details, for there, awe-struck and silent as himself, stood Amy Warden and Isola the nurse! CHAPTER XII. THE time passed slowly and heavily to Mr. Warden during Lord Hardcastle’s absence. The Docteur Lemoine arrived in due course, the ribbon of the Legion of Honour fastened in his button-hole, and a general air of got-up-for-the-occasion about him. It was not often, indeed, that he had a patient of Mr. Warden’s standing to attend. His experiences, as a rule, were limited to the dying beds of the simple peasantry about him, for it is not often that a Cevenol mountaineer calls in the aid of a doctor—rarely, indeed, until the patient is beyond the hope of recovery. He looked inquiringly at Mr. Warden, and was proceeding to ask him a multitude of questions, when the latter stopped him. “My friend,” he said, “I shall be your patient for such a very short time that it is really not worth while for you to take a great deal of trouble about me. My disease is mental, not bodily, and what I most require is rest and quiet. What you want to know you must find out from your own observation, and I will promise to take any remedy you may prescribe.” “But,” expostulated the doctor, “I have been called in to attend M’sieur, who I am told is suffering. What will you? There are questions I must ask. My profession”— “Doctor Lemoine,” again interrupted Mr. Warden, “what I wish is that you should stay in the house in case of need till my friend returns. The people here will make you very comfortable, and you can come into my room and look at me as often as you like; only, I beg, do not trouble me with any questions.” Then the doctor bowed and withdrew, and was compelled to content himself with questioning the landlord and his wife of their strange guest, and in his broad mountain _patois_ declared again and again that such treatment was unheard of, incredible; that if he had not seen death itself written on the stranger’s features he could not have supported such an insult.