Her presence, it must be allowed, put but little constraint upon the extraordinary intimacy of the pair. The doctor was all devotion, and Miss Custer all languor and dependence. She made a beautiful invalid, with her rare complexion and her white, lissome hands lying so restfully and helplessly on the counterpane. One day, after being freshly dressed in an embroidered gown of the finest texture, and instructing Mrs. Tascher how to wind her hair, which was long and abundant, around the top of her head in a coronet that was very becoming to her, she requested to have Mr. Bruce sent in when he came to his dinner. She had some affairs that must be looked into immediately by a legal eye. "Had you not better just send him a message?" asked Mrs. Tascher. "No: I prefer to attend to it myself," she returned coldly. Bruce was therefore sent in, and Mrs. Tascher stepped out into the sitting-room. Miss Custer, who was certainly very white, raised her dusky eyelids, smiled faintly and held out her jewelled hand. Bruce, standing awkwardly enough by the bed-side, took it, but without apparent appreciation of its loveliness. The invalid had chosen an inopportune moment: despite the subdued light of the chamber, it was high noon and the sun shone burningly outside, and Bruce, who had just eaten a hearty dinner, was utterly devoid of sentiment and indifferent to nice effects. There was a tumbler of dewy roses on a little table beside the bed, and he picked out one, and, sitting down, began eating the leaves one by one. "I hope," said he, thinking it a good plan to rally the sick a little, "you haven't got so discouraged by this indisposition--which the doctor tells me is not at all serious--that you wish to make your will?" "No," she returned, hardly able to conceal her disgust at the unfeeling wretch: "I merely wish to send to my attorney for some money." "Oh, is that it?" said Bruce, laughing. "Then the doctor was right. So long as a person takes a controlling interest in his affairs he is safe." "A _person_!" thought Miss Custer, and really curled her lip. She gave him her lawyer's address, stated the sum she wanted and told him he might say that she was ill. "And unable to write," added Bruce. "All right! I shall be as prompt in the execution of your commission as the exigences of the case appear to demand." He took up his hat and went out cheerily, and Miss Custer turned her face to the wall and cried. For a day or two she was worse: then she grew better, and was finally able to sit up. At the expiration of two weeks Ruth came back. She was very pale and her face had a rigid look. Miss Custer met her sweetly, being still under the subduing influence of invalidism, and Ruth tried to feel kindly to her; which was a great vexation to Mrs. Tascher. "Let me alone," said Ruth passionately one day. "Don't you see how I hate her? I could almost kill her! I am trying to fight down the demon in me."