I hurried back to the house in a state of agitation which I cannot describe. It was partly nervous dread. I do not disguise this; but partly it was a bewildered anxiety and eagerness to know what it was that I might be able to do. That I had the most absolute faith in it I need hardly say. One does not have, or think one has, such an interview as this without believing what is told in it. There was no doubt in my mind, save an anxious, excited wonder--how was it, how could it be? I searched all my horizon for possibilities. Before I reached the house, I had forgotten all the other incidents in my eagerness about this. My pursuit of her seemed nothing but natural, and the sudden silence that had seemed to tingle and thrill about me went clean out of my mind. “You may help if you will! if you will!” I said it over and over to myself a thousand times with a feverish hurry and eagerness. Indeed, I did nothing but repeat it. I could not eat, I could not rest. When Charlotte came down late to tell me her father was asleep, that the doctor who had been sent for had pronounced his recovery real, I was walking up and down the half-lighted drawing-room repeating these wonderful words over and over to myself. “He says it is wonderful, but it may be complete recovery,” Charlotte said; “only to tell him nothing we can help, to keep all the circumstances from him; especially, if it is possible, about Ellermore. But how is it possible? how can I do it? ‘Help if you will?’ Mr. Temple, what are you saying?” “It is nothing,” I said; “some old rhyme that has got possession of me.” She looked very anxiously into my face. “Something else has happened? You have seen or heard”--Her mind was so alive to every tone and glance that it was scarcely possible to conceal a thought from her. “I have been in the Walk,” I said, “and, being excited and restless, it was more than my nerves could bear.” She looked at me again wistfully. “You would not deceive me, Mr. Temple,” she said; then returned to her original subject. The doctor was anxious, above all things, that Mr. Campbell should leave Ellermore to-morrow; that he should go early, and, above all, that he should not suspect the reason why. She had the same dread of the removal as ever, but there was no alternative; and not even a day’s delay was to be thought of, for every day, every hour, made the chances of discovery more. “But you cannot keep up the delusion for ever,” I said, “and what when it is found out?” Again she wrung her hands. “It is against my judgment; but what can I do?” She paused a moment, and then said, with a melancholy dignity, “It can but kill him, soon or syne. I would not myself have my life saved by a lie; but I am weak where my father is concerned, and God understands all. Oh, I am beginning to feel that so, Mr. Temple. We search and search, and think what is best, and we make a hundred mistakes; but God sees the why and the wherefore. Whoever misunderstands, He never misunderstands.”