When the doctor arrived and questioned her, she could furnish no clew to the cause of the attack, save by pointing to the table, where pen and paper showed that the sufferer had been at work. Edna opened her eyes at last, and looked around at the group of anxious faces, but in a moment the spasm of pain returned. Twice she muttered something, and putting his ear close to her mouth, the doctor heard her whispering to herself: "Never mind; it is done at last! Now I can rest." An hour elapsed before the paroxysms entirely subsided, and then, with her ivory-like hands clasped and thrown up over her head, the governess slept heavily, dreamlessly. For two days she remained in her own apartment, and on the morning of the third came down to the schoolroom, with a slow, weary step and a bloodless face, and a feeling of hopeless helplessness. She dispatched her MS. to the publisher to whom she had resolved to offer it, and, leaning far back in her chair, took up Felix's Greek grammar. Since the days of Dionysius Thrax, it had probably never appeared so tedious, so intolerably tiresome, as she found it now, and she felt relieved, almost grateful when Mrs. Andrews sent for her to come to the library, where Dr. Howell was waiting to see her. Seating himself beside her, the physician examined her countenance and pulse, and put his ear close to her heart. "Miss Earl, have you had many such attacks as the one whose effects have not yet passed away?" "This is the second time I have suffered so severely; though very frequently I find a disagreeable fluttering about my heart, which is not very painful." "What mode of treatment have you been following?" "None, sir. I have never consulted a physician." "Humph! Is it possible?" He looked at her with the keen, incisive eye of his profession, and pressed his ear once more to her heart, listening to the irregular and rapid pulsations. "Miss Earl, are you an orphan?" "Yes, sir." "Have you any living relatives?" "None that I ever heard of." "Did any of your family die suddenly?" "Yes, I have been told that my mother died while apparently as well as usual, and engaged in spinning; and my grandfather I found dead, sitting in his rocking-chair, smoking his pipe." Dr. Howell cleared his throat, sighed and was silent. He saw a strange, startled expression leap into the large shadowy eyes, and the mouth quivered, the wan face grew whiter, and the thin fingers grasped each other; but she said nothing, and they sat looking at one another. The physician had come like Daniel to the banquet of life, and solved for the Belshazzar of youth the hideous riddle scrawled on the walls. "Dr. Howell, can you do nothing for me?" Her voice had sunk to a whisper, and she leaned eagerly forward to catch his answer. "Miss Earl, do you know what is meant by hypertrophy of the heart?" "Yes, yes, I know." She shivered slightly.