She was very ill, with such an illness as might have been easily induced by long-continued anxiety and want of rest—anxious days, sleepless nights. The gravest feature in the case was the delirium—the inability to recognise familiar faces. ‘Lucille,’ he said, in a low tender voice, ‘don’t you know me?’ She did not answer him. Her head moved wearily on the pillow from side to side, while her lips murmured faintly. Lucius bent over her to catch the words. ‘You shouldn’t have come here, father,’ she said, ‘if you couldn’t forgive him. But no, no, you could not do him any harm—you could not be so vile as that. I have loved you so dearly. Papa, don’t you remember—the violin—our happy evenings?’ Thus the parched lips went on, in low broken murmurs, which were sometimes quite unintelligible. ‘It’s been all her father since she was took that way,’ said Mrs. Wincher. ‘Strange that her mind should brood thus upon that one memory,’ thought Lucius—‘the one tender remembrance of her childhood.’ He lingered for some time by the bedside, listening to those indistinct murmurs in which the name of ‘father’ was so often repeated. Then he began to consider what he must do to secure the safety of this beloved sufferer. To leave her in the custody of people whom he believed guilty of the deepest iniquity was not to be dreamed of. He must get rid of these Winchers at any hazard, bring in a sick nurse upon whose fidelity he could rely, and, so far as it was possible, keep watch upon the premises himself by day and night. Get rid of the Winchers? How was that to be done? He had no authority for their dismissal. There was one way, he thought, hazardous perhaps for his patient, but tolerably certain of immediate success. He must inform Mr. Sivewright of the robbery, and state on whom his suspicions fell. There was little doubt that on learning he had been robbed the _bric-à-brac_ dealer would dismiss his old servants. The first thing to be done was to get the sick nurse and secure Lucille’s safety, come what might. He told Mrs. Wincher that he would return in half an hour or so to see her master, and left the house without giving her any farther hint as to his intention. He knew of a nurse in the immediate neighbourhood, a woman of the comfortable motherly order, of whose ministrations among his patients he had had ample experience, and he hailed the first cab that hove in sight, and drove off in quest of this honest matron. Fortune favoured him. Mrs. Milderson, the nurse—like Mrs. Gamp, sick and monthly—had just returned from an interesting case in the West India-road. On this worthy woman Lucius descended like a whirlwind: would hardly give her time to rummage up an apron or two and a clean print gown, let alone her brush and comb—as she said plaintively—ere he whisked her into the devouring jaws of the hansom, which swallowed her up, bundle and all, and conveyed her with almost electric speed to Cedar House.