“You are already better, Georgie. We will soon have you well,” Maude said encouragingly, while one of the ladies in attendance carried the good news that Georgie had spoken, to Mrs. Burton, who was in strong hysterics on the sofa in her own room, and over whom poor, ignorant Mr. Burton had emptied by turns the water-jug, the camphor-bottle, the cologne and arnica, in his awkward attempts to help her. Limp and wet, with her false curls as straight as an Indian’s hair, and her under teeth on the floor where the hapless husband planted his boot heel upon them, and crushed them out of shape, the poor woman received the news, and in her joy went into another hysteric fit worse than any which had preceded it. Frightened now out of his wits, and taking advantage of the presence of some one with whom he could leave his spouse, Mr. Burton retreated precipitately from the room, wondering why the deuce the women wanted to raise such a row as his wife and Georgie were doing. “Hanged if I don’t take the first train for New York, and stay there, too, when I get there,” he said, as he rushed out into the back yard, where he met Roy, just dismounting from his horse, and looking very anxious and disturbed, though _not_ as unhappy as one might expect of a man who had just heard that his bridal, for that day at least, was impossible, and his bride a paralytic. CHAPTER XLIII. ROY. He had not slept much the previous night. Indeed, but for the dream which came to him in the early morning, he would have sworn he had not slept at all since parting from Miss Overton, just as the clock struck twelve. He had left Georgie at an early hour, and tried, as he kissed her cheek, to believe himself happy in the possession of so much grace and beauty, and he wondered, as he rode slowly home, at the strange disquietude which possessed him, the feeling of something lost, or losing very fast from his life; something which could have made him happier far than he was now, for he was _not_ happy, and as he went through his beautiful grounds up to his handsome house, he would have given all his fair heritage to have been free again, and as he was one year ago; ay, less than a year ago, on that September day when his mother’s hired companion first greeted his sight as he came up the avenue, and saw her standing upon the vine-wreathed piazza. As she had been there then, so she was now, with this exception: his mother had retired, and Edna sat alone, enjoying, or thinking she was enjoying, the glorious summer night, and trying to make believe that she was happy; that there was no hidden pain in her heart; no lingering regret for what could never be; no _love_,—to put it in plain words,—for the man riding toward her, and whose wedding-day was on the morrow. He saw her, and his heart gave a bound such as it never gave at sight of Georgie, and then his quick eye noted next that she was alone, and he was conscious of a