He caught her in his arms, when with a strange cry--a strained kind of laugh with a hysterical catch in it--she sank fainting on his breast. With a sharp exclamation of pain and fear he bore her swiftly from the room (he was near the door) and into a little conservatory that opened upon the staircase, casting his eyes upon Lefevre as he went, and saying, "Come! come quick!" Lefevre then woke to the fact that he had been fixedly regarding this last strange scene, while Lady Mary clung trembling to his arm. He hurried out after Julius, followed by Lady Mary and his mother. "Take her!" cried Julius, standing away from Nora, and looking white and terror-stricken. "Restore her! Oh, I must not!--I dare not touch her!" With nimble accustomed fingers Lady Mary undid Nora's dress, while the doctor applied the remedies usual in hysterical fainting. Nora opened her eyes and fixed them upon Julius. "O Julius, Julius!" she cried. "Do not leave me! Come near me! Oh!... I think I am going to die!" "My love! my life! my soul!" said Julius, stretching out his hands to her, but approaching no nearer. "I cannot--I must not touch you! No, no! I dare not!" "O Julius!" said she. "Are you afraid of me? How can I harm you?" "Nora, my life! I am afraid of myself! You would not harm me, but I would harm you! Ah, I know it now only too well!" Then, as she closed her eyes again, she said, "I had better die!" "No, you must not die!" he exclaimed. "Your time is not yet! Yes, you will live!--live! But I must be cut off--though not for ever--from the sweetest and dearest, the noblest and purest of all God's creatures!" In the meantime Lefevre had been examining his sister with closer scrutiny. He raised her eyelid and looked at her eye; he pricked her on the arm and wrist; and then he turned to Julius. "Julius," said he, "what does this mean?" "It means," answered Julius, covering his face with his hands, "that I am of all living things the most accurst!" Then with a cry of horror and anguish he fled from the room and down the stairs. Lady Lefevre followed him in a flutter of fear. Presently she returned, and said, in answer to a look from her son, "He snatched his hat and coat, and was gone before I came up with him." Without a word Lefevre set himself to recover his sister, and in half an hour she was well enough to walk with Lady Mary's assistance to bed. The guests, meanwhile, had departed, all but two or three intimates; and in less than an hour Dr Lefevre was returning home in the Fane carriage. Lord Rivercourt and he talked of the strange events of the evening, while Lady Mary leaned back and half-absently listened. They were proceeding thus along Piccadilly, when she suddenly caught the doctor's arm and exclaimed-- "Oh! Look! The very man I met in the Park! I am sure of it! I can never forget the face!"