"Hush!" said a low female voice close to me--"hush! Doctor Delaville says you are not to speak, sir,--not even to turn, if you can help it." "Doctor Delaville--not speak! Call Lennox, will ye?" and I again began to waver.--"Mr Marline, how is her head? Oh, my side--merciful Providence! what has befallen--what _is_ wrong with me?"--as I tried to move round in order to see the person who had spoken. I effected my purpose so far as to half turn my face from the light--"Oh, Heaven have mercy on me!--my senses are gone, and I am mad." I shut my eyes, and under this heart-crushing belief, wept bitterly. There was a large balcony or open window in the wall of the apartment farthest from the street, towards which I had turned my face, that opened into a room beyond, at a height of about three feet from the floor. It was fitted with shutters opening inwards, like those of the external windows. The saloon into which I looked was apparently a lofty room, and lighted, so far as I could judge, entirely from the roof. I also inferred that this part of the house projected back from the main building, and that it was lower, and overshadowed by green trees; for the light that shone from above was subdued, and green, and cold, and more like moonlight than that of the sun. On the walls beyond I could see pictures; and a piano stood near the window, and several sofas were scattered about, so that it appeared better furnished than most houses I had seen in the place; and I knew, that although I was certainly not in Mr M----'s house, neither was I in that of a Spaniard. There was a very handsome geranium, in an ornamented porcelain jar, in the window, which, in some measure, impeded my view at the top; although near the sill there was only the solitary stalk, naked of leaves. Presently, as my eyes got accustomed to the twilight, I noticed gloves, and bonnets, and several large green fans, lying on a table beyond the window, as if this had been the retreat of some of the females of the family; all continued as still as death--and the coolness and freshness of the apartment I looked into, was grateful beyond belief to my feverish eye and swimming brain. By and by I heard a rattling and creaking volante drive past, and the shouts of the driver to his mule, which excited me; and I once more asked the person who was sitting knitting beside me, where I was. "Hush, hush--until the doctor comes," was still the answer,--and I again turned my eyes in the direction of the balcony, and gloated on the flowers and leaves of the noble plant on the window-sill, which seemed jet black, as they twinkled in the breeze between me and the light. I could now hear the sea-breeze set in, and rush amongst the branches of the trees, and moan through the long galleries and lofty apartments of the house--slamming a shutter to here, and making a door bang there, and rustling the shawls, and bonnets, and female gear in the boudoir.