"What Edith?" I exclaimed. "Are there not many of that name? It is true I _do_ come from a young lady patient whose name _happens_ to be Edith. What then?" "The same! I knew it, I knew it," he cried. "Tell me all about her, doctor; you have seen her, and spoken to her. Oh! we may yet meet in the flesh, even if she be denied me in the spirit. Did you tell her of my case, doctor?" I nodded my head. "I told her," said I, "that I was attending a young man whose symptoms very much resembled her own. Oh! I had a long talk with her, I assure you; and what do you think she wants of me?" I asked. "Why, she was actually unfeeling enough to ask me not to cure you; she was, indeed." "My own dear Edith!" he exclaimed. "Of course she doesn't want me cured; and, doctor, if you would do both her and me a kindness, don't--oh, don't--cure her." "Well, you're an amiable couple, I'm fancying," said I. "I wonder whether there are many more such loving couples in the world as you two." "Well, doctor," he said, smiling, "have you any more news for me?" "Perhaps I may have," I answered, mysteriously. "What should you say if she entrusted me with a present to you?" "A present from _her_! Oh, doctor, don't trifle with me. Is it really so?" Hereupon I thrust my hand into my pocket, and produced the lock of hair, wrapped up in a piece of tissue paper. He made a snatch at it with his long lean fingers, and tearing it open, exclaimed, "_Her_ hair! I could swear to it anywhere. What did she say, doctor, when she gave this into your hands?" "She said," said I, "'Take this to my spirit lover, and tell him Edith sends him this in the flesh, and hopes to see him again in the spirit.'" "Bless her! bless her!" he cried, enthusiastically kissing the relic repeatedly and pressing it to his heart. I allowed this transport to pass well over before I spoke again. At length I enquired how he had passed the night. "Badly," he replied, sulkily. "What! have you not felt quieter, more composed?" "Oh, yes," he answered; "you don't suppose that I am ignorant that you have been drugging me?" he said, casting at me a look of reproach. "Drugging you?" I exclaimed. "Yes; did you think I couldn't taste that stuff that you got my parents to give me through all its disguise? Do you think I did not feel its influence?" "A salutary influence only, I hope," I answered, being forced at length to admit the stratagem that I had felt it my duty to adopt. "What you would call a salutary influence," he retorted. "But do you know," he added, almost fiercely, "that you have robbed me of those dreams that constituted the better part of my life? In fact, my _real_, my _only_ life." "I am sorry for that," I remarked. "Do you then not dream at all now?"