Lettie kissed her fondly, and left the room. Going upstairs, she soon returned completely equipped for the street, and carrying a small traveling bag in her hands. This she must have prepared before leaving the room for breakfast. In the hall, she stopped for a moment as if hesitating, and then walking steadily, she entered the little room used by Doctor Conway as an office. He had gone--she knew that, yet she stayed for some moments in the little office alone. When she left it, her veil was drawn closely over her face; and so she left the house, and so passed out of Lester Conway’s life for many years. CHAPTER V. THE STRANGER’S CONVALESCENCE. A sensation of being suspended motionless in mid-air, with the knowledge of having been thus suspended for innumerable centuries, then a soft, floating sensation, as if he were being carried softly through space on billowy clouds; this, in turn, changing to a dreamy languor, pervaded with a consciousness of four walls and a bed, and our strange traveler had awakened from his week of fever and delirium. There was no wonder at finding himself in this position--perhaps he had not as yet sufficiently recovered his mental strength to feel any emotion of surprise. He only lay and stared at a damp-looking spot on the ceiling over the bed, and feebly wondered how he had managed to reach high enough to color that, and why, while he was coloring it, he had not colored it black, or blue, or green, or anything rather than that muddy brown. After wearily revolving this in his mind for some time, he became so feebly exasperated at this haunting spot that he essayed to erase it immediately. There was a wan, pale-looking hand lying on the counterpane in front of him. He was not distinctly conscious of its being his hand. But with an utter disregard for the rights of property, he decided on using it. Here was a surprise, for he had no sooner thought of using the hand than it had lifted itself from the counterpane, and after fluttering in the air very much after the manner of a wounded bird, had dropped again some three or four inches from its first position. It was trying to escape from him--there could be no doubt about that: and mingled with his aversion for that faint spot on the ceiling, there came an intense desire to obtain possession of that hand. Then he partly turned his head on the pillow, and forgot his vexation in the immensity of his second surprise. His bed was on one side of a small, square room. Such a very small room it was, that his bed seemed to occupy the larger part of it. And yet, small as it was, it was large enough to contain a vast deal of cozy comfort. On the side of the room opposite the bed there was an old-fashioned, red-brick fireplace, which, though small for its kind, was large enough to look ridiculously out of proportion to the size of the room.