"Of course," I answered, although such was not my intention. Then I went forth walking out to the Hammersmith Road. The noon was stifling--one of those hot, close, oven-cast days of the London summer--when I was shown into the drawing-room of Gloucester Square, and, after the lapse of a few minutes, my love came forward gladly to meet me. "It's awfully kind of you to call, Doctor," she exclaimed, offering her thin little hand--that hand that on the previous night had been so stiff and cold. "Nora is out, but I expect her in again every moment. She's gone to the Stores to order things to be sent up to Atworth." "And how do you feel?" I inquired, as she seated herself upon a low silken lounge-chair and stretched out her tiny foot, neat in its patent leather slipper with large steel buckle. She looked cool and fresh in a gown of white muslin relieved with a dash of Nile-green silk at the throat and waist. "Oh, I am so much better," she declared. "Except for a slight headache, I feel no ill effects of last night's extraordinary attack." I asked permission to feel her pulse, and found it beating with the regularity of a person in normal health. As I held her white wrist, her deep clear eyes met mine. In her pure white clinging drapery, with her gold-brown hair making the half-darkened room bright, with her red lips parted in a tender and solemn smile, with something like a halo about her of youth and ardour, she was a vision so entrancing that, as I gazed at her, my heart grew heavy with an aching consciousness of her perfection. And yet she was actually my wife! I stammered satisfaction that she had recovered so entirely from the strange seizure, and her eyes opened widely, as though in wonder at my inarticulate words. "Yes," she said, "the affair was most extraordinary. I cannot imagine what horrid mystery is concealed within that room." "Nor I," I responded. "Has Doctor Hoefer been here yet?" "Oh yes," she laughed; "he came at nine o'clock, opened the room, entered, and was seized again, but only slightly. He used the same drug as last night, and quickly recovered. For about an hour he remained, and then left. He's such a queer old fellow," she added, with a laugh; "I don't think he uttered a dozen words during the whole time." "No," I said; "his habit is to give vent to those expressive grunts. When interested his mind seems always so actively centred upon the matter under investigation that to speak is an effort. But tell me," I urged, glancing into those pure, honest eyes, "have you ever experienced before such a seizure as that last night?" She turned rather pale, I thought: this direct question seemed not easy to answer. "I was ill once," she responded, with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness. "One day, some little time ago, I suddenly fell unconscious, and seemed to dream all sorts of absurd and grotesque things." Did she refer to the fateful day of our marriage?