“P. S.—You will think that the sickness is sudden—not so sudden, perhaps! I will not say that it may not be dangerous, if your help is withheld.” In resentful tones Mrs. Marvel read out this artful billet. The rector showed no sign of confusion. “Oh, uncle!” said she, when she had finished. “Well, child,” he returned, and tucked her rebellious arm under his own, “well, here has Bindon got you again, and here shall Bindon hold you!” She went a little way by his side in silence. Bindon grass was tender to her feet and Bindon airs balmy to her face. Bindon woods, gathering close about her, seemed to fold her round with a sense of security and faithful guardianship—David’s Bindon, full of him, though empty just now, as she thought, of his dear presence. God, was it not all too sweet? Was not her mad heart too insensately throbbing with that poisoned sweetness of it—and to what end? She wrenched her hand from the close pressure of his elbow: “Why have you played me this cruel trick? Why have you lured me here on a pretence?” she asked again, resentfully. Before the passion of her distress, parson Tutterville dropped the amiable banter of speech and manner and became grave. “My dear child,” he answered, taking both her hands in his— “there was no pretence. There is a sick man here who needs you very much, sorely indeed!” His meaning flashed into her soul almost before the words had left his lips. She formed the word: “David!” And he felt her tremble violently. “I understood David was away,” she said. “He is ill?” He was shocked at himself for the anxiety he had unwittingly caused; and, moved to the very core by this depth of feeling he had hitherto barely guessed at: “Forgive me, child,” he said gently. “David returned yesterday. He is not sick in body—no,” hastily reading yet whiter terror on her face, “nor yet in mind, thank God! But he is sick at heart.” “Sick at heart!” “Aye, for want of you!” Once more Ellinor crimsoned, but this time it was the “lovely banner of love” that flaunted on her poor white face. “Did David send for me?” The cry smote the good man now with its sound of irrepressible joy. Short as their interview had been, he felt ever more strongly how clumsy were even his well-meaning fingers upon this delicate thing—a woman’s heart. “One man only,” he said to himself, “has the right to play on that lute—that is the man she loves.” And aloud: “No, David does not know,” he replied. “Then why am I here-what will he think?” She looked wildly round, almost as if she would have started running back all those miles to her hiding-place. The rector laid a restraining hand upon her shoulder. She turned on him fiercely. “You should not have brought me here!” “My child, you should never have left us!” When there was that tone in Horatio Tutterville’s voice and that look in his kind eye, his rarely exercised authority made itself irresistibly felt. Ellinor’s reproachful anger was turned to a filial pleading: