it were strong and strange. However apart from Gard himself her idea of him may have been, it was one which this long watch beside him, the touch of the slow pulse, and the knowledge of how closely he now at least moved along the frontier of shadows, only made more intimate. The organ was not needed to interpret him. She felt that she knew what he was like. She thought the pulse-beat spoke, as the organ used to speak, with the same swift, immediate presence, and that, when she whispered "You _must_ stay," it throbbed an answer: "You mean, come back. You've no idea how far it is down here, and very curious. But maybe I can, if you'll hold your end of whatever it is." And so the crowd and the murmur, the babbling in delirium of the man on the next stretcher, the laboring of the steamer ploughing up stream, the passing of hours, all seemed moved apart from her. Sometimes the distant consciousness would seem to almost or quite return, and look out at her under wavering eyelashes. The lips moved, and she fancied they said, "I knew you were there." She became aware, at the same time, that the steamer had stopped, that the stretchers were being carried out in procession, and that over her stood Mavering, Rachel, and Thaddeus Bourn; and of these she was hardly aware enough to be surprised at Thaddeus. When they came to the house with the white door, and he drew her aside a moment, she half resisted in a dazed way, and felt as if not to be close to Gard were against nature and reason. Thaddeus drew her into the sitting-room. The men had carried Gard to the room beyond. They had set down the stretcher and were moving him. "In point of fact," began Thaddeus, "I've come to take you home. Your mother is--a--not so well. I fear it is quite serious. I wrote you, but it did not at that time seem serious. A woman of astonishing placidity, my dear, which I have sometimes felt tempted to recommend, in fact, to your imitation. But the circumstances are such now that it would not. I might say, be in good taste. Her condition is, I regret to say--seems to be--but perhaps to-morrow." He was not sure she heard him. "Oh yes, to-morrow." To-morrow might be what it liked if he would let her go now. She slipped away. The men came out and left the house. Rachel followed with Mavering and closed the door. After a time Thaddeus said: "Relative to a certain estate, Mrs. Mavering, in which you and I made investments, undertook a trusteeship, has it not, in your opinion, been administered somewhat--a--speculatively? It appears to me to be loaded, I might say, with liabilities. I do not see that the--a--securities are ascertained." "Oh! but I think he will get well." "Granted--and then?" "He _must_ care for her." "Granted--a--it would seem probable, and then?" He deliberately refrained from looking at Mavering, who was examining Thaddeus, his gold-rimmed glasses and accurate tailoring, with speculative interest.