“What?” shouted the doctor. “Your fault that your brother was murdered? Come, come, this is arrant nonsense. You don’t mean to say that you are making Keeling miserable on account of this delusion?” “No, it is worse with him.” She spoke very low. “I have never told even Lady Haigh; but whenever I see Major Keeling, or even think of him, Colin’s face seems to rise up before me--not dead, but as the dervish described it, white and thin, and his hair white too. And I can’t help feeling that it may be a--warning.” “A fiddlestick! Oh, you Scotch people, with your portents and your visions! A warning of what?” “You don’t know--perhaps I ought not to tell you--but I am sure Colin would have disapproved of my--caring for Major Keeling. And we were twins, you know--what if he comes to show me that he disapproves of it still?” She looked at him with wide eyes of terror. “Then you don’t know that in talking to Lady Haigh he gave her to understand that he had no objection to your marrying the Chief--excuse me if I speak plainly--and even looked forward to it? She told me as much when she was confiding to me her anxiety about you.” “Colin said that to Elma, and she told you--and never told me!” “Why, how could she? Of course she felt the time hadn’t come--that you would think her brutal, or horrid, or whatever young ladies call it. She mentioned it to me in confidence, and I had no business to repeat it; but I’m the sort of person that rushes in where angels fear to tread--am I not? Having once opened my attack, I couldn’t keep my biggest gun idle, could I? What! you won’t condescend to answer me?” “I am trying to understand,” she said in a low voice. “It ought to make such a difference, and yet--there is Colin’s face.” “My dear Miss Ross,” he spoke earnestly, as her eyes questioned his, “this illusion of yours is purely physical. You have been brooding over your brother’s fate for months, and living a most unhealthy life--eating only enough to keep body and soul together, and refusing to take exercise or accept any distraction. The wonder would have been if you had not seen visions after it. Now that you know the truth about your brother’s feelings, don’t you agree with me that nothing would have grieved him more than to know you had made such a bugbear of him? At any rate, let us put the illusion to the test. You must have a thorough change--Lady Haigh and I will arrange it--and see nothing for a time of any of the people here. You don’t mind the Haighs, I suppose? Very well; then the illusion will disappear, if I am right. If not, you must see Keeling once, and definitely bring things to an end. He is not the man to break his heart for a woman who hasn’t courage to accept him”--he saw that Penelope winced--“but it is this undecided state of affairs that is the trouble. And if you have any heart at all, you will let him know that it is not his fault, and that you hope things will be different in future.”