While the three inmates of the white-washed villa were watching the days go by, and wondering if to-morrow could possibly be as happy as yesterday and to-day, Clide de Winton was living a very different life in his lodgings near the asylum. He had not yet been permitted to see the lady whom he believed to be his wife. She had fallen ill with an attack on the lungs which had very nearly proved fatal, and during the six weeks that it lasted it was impossible to let any one approach her except the familiar faces of the doctor and her attendant. She had rallied from this illness only to return to her old delusion with a fonder intensity than ever. Day after day she decked herself in her faded flowers and ribbons, and stood or knelt at her window, stretching out her arms to the mid-day sun, calling to him with the tenderest words of endearment, and telling him her passionate love-tale over and over again; then turning from this to paroxysms of despair more violent than formerly, and which threatened at each crisis to shatter the fragile vase and send the feeble spark flying upwards. “And now she courted love; now, raving, called on hate.” Clide had repeatedly asked to see Mr. Percival, but the desire for an interview was evidently not mutual; for, although no refusal was ever sent, the promises held out by the medical man were continually broken; the visit of Mr. Percival was always “unexpectedly prevented” by one cause or another. Stanton arrived at the conclusion that he did not wish to meet Clide, and that, moreover, he was constantly at the asylum unknown to them, and that the only way to see him would be to lie in wait and collar him, and make him speak out by main force, since he would not do it otherwise. Mr. de Winton saw difficulties in the way of this summary method of proceeding, but his valet entreated him to leave it in his hands and not trouble himself about that. Clide had small confidence in the diplomatic skill of his man, but he could trust him not to do anything dangerously rash; so he asked no questions, but let him follow his own devices for catching Mr. Percival. That gentleman, however, proved himself a match for Stanton. He was not to be taken either by stratagem or force; and though Stanton dodged about the park gates, and recruited a small police force, amongst little boys on the lookout for a penny, to skulk about late and early to watch the comers and goers from the asylum, and give him timely warning, it led to nothing but vain hopes and frequent disappointments.