Did he love her? did he want to marry her? As he asked himself the question, his thoughts wandered back to Kilsyth. He saw her lying flushed and fevered, her long golden hair tossing over her pillow, a bright light in her blue eyes, her hot hands clasped behind her burning head--or, better still, in her convalescence, when she lay still and tranquil, and looked up at him timidly and softly, and thanked him in the fullest and most liquid tones for all his kindness to her. And he remembered how, gazing at her, listening to her, the remembrance of what Love really was had come to him out of the faraway regions of the Past, and had moved his heart within him in the same manner, but much more potently than it had been moved in the days of his youth. Yes; the question that he had put to himself admitted but of one answer. He did love Madeleine Kilsyth; he did want to marry her! To that end he would employ all his energies; to secure that he would defer everything. What nonsense had he been talking about giving up his practice and going away? He would remain where he was, and marry Madeleine! And Henrietta Prendergast? The thought of that woman struck him like a whip. If he were to marry Madeleine Kilsyth, would not that woman, Henrietta Prendergast, Mabel's intimate and only friend--would not she proclaim to the world all that she knew of the jealousy in which the dead woman held the young girl? Would not his marriage be a confirmation of her story? Might it not be possible that the existence of such a talk might create other talk; that the manner of her death might be discussed; that it might be suspected that, driven to it by jealousy--that is how they would put it--Mrs. Wilmot had destroyed herself? And if "they" put it so, it would be in vain to deny it. The mere fact of his having been successful in his profession had created hosts of enemies, who would take advantage of the first adverse wind, and do their best to blast his renown and bring him down from the pedestal to which he had been elevated. Then bit by bit the scandal would grow--would permeate his practice--would become general town-talk. He would see the whispers and the shoulder-shrugs and the uplifted eyebrows, and perhaps the cool manner or the possible cut. Could he stand that? Could a man of his sensibility endure such talk? could he bear to feel that his domesticity was being laid bare before the world for the comment of each idler who might choose to wile away his time in discussing the story? Impossible! No; sooner keep in his present dreary, hopeless, isolated position, sooner give up all chances of winning Madeleine, sooner even retrograde. He had no children to provide for, and could always have enough to support him in a sufficient manner. He would give it all up; he would go away; he would banish for ever that day-dream which he had permitted himself to enjoy, and he would--