"Oh no; I beg you will not go," said Lady Scarlett anxiously. "Perhaps I shall be _de trop_," said Prayle smoothly, and his voice and looks forbade the idea that they were in the slightest degree malicious. "Well, as my remarks are for Lady Scarlett alone, Mr Prayle, perhaps you would kindly give me half an hour." "Certainly," cried Prayle, with a great assumption of frankness.--"Lady Scarlett will tell me, perhaps, when she would like to go on with these accounts?" "Oh, at any time, Arthur," said Lady Scarlett anxiously. "Pray, do not think I am slighting them: but this seems of so much more importance now." "When and where you please," said Prayle softly. "Don't study me. I have only my cousin's interest at heart." He rose, smiling, and left the room; but the smile passed off Prayle's countenance as the door closed; and he went out angry-looking and biting his lip, to walk up and down the garden, turning from time to time to the book he held in his hand. The doctor was very quiet and grave, as he took the chair pointed to by Lady Scarlett; and as he gazed at her rather fixedly, his face seemed to harden. "I am very glad you have come," she said. "James seems to be more restful and confident now you are here. He always thought so much of you." "We were such old companions: perhaps that is it." "Well, you have seen him again this morning. You said I was to give you time. Now, tell me what you think. You find him better?" "I must be frank with you, Lady Scarlett," said the doctor. "No; I do not." "And I was so hopeful!" said the poor woman piteously. "It would be folly for me not to speak plainly--I think cruelty. I find him worse." Lady Scarlett let her head go down upon her hands, covering her face, and the doctor thought that she was weeping; but at the end of a minute she raised her head again, and looked at her visitor, dry-eyed and pale. "Go on," she said in a voice full of suppressed pain. "I cannot, help telling you plainly what I think." "No; of course not. Pray, hide nothing from me." "Well, it seems to me," he continued, "that in bringing him back as it were to life, I left part of my work undone." "O no!" cried Lady Scarlett. "Yes: I brought back his body to life and activity, but I seem to have left behind much of his brain. That seems half dead. He is no longer the man he was." "No," sighed Lady Scarlett. "What you say is true; but surely," she cried, "you can cure him now." The doctor remained silent and thoughtful for a few minutes. "I think when I was down here--at the time of the accident--I told you at the table about a patient I was attending--a gentleman suffering from a peculiar nervous ailment." "O yes, yes!" cried Lady Scarlett. "I remember. It seems to be burned into my brain, and I've lain awake night after night, thinking it was almost prophetic." "I've thought so too," said the doctor drily, "though I never fancied that I was going to join the prophets."