Pale and trembling with fear for her darling, the usually cold, stern woman appeared before Dr. Duncan. "Let me see her," she said, in a choking voice. "Dear Mrs. King," he replied, "I think it will be better for her if you do not see her just yet. Sit down and I will tell you all about her. Pray do not alarm yourself." "Is it dangerous?" she interrupted in the same tones, seemingly not having heard what he said. "We cannot tell yet; she has received a severe shock. It may prove to be merely a passing attack, or it may be--" "May be what?" "Brain fever." Catherine looked down on the ground, and thought a little before she spoke again. "You say she received a shock. Who gave her a shock?--what was it?--who was it?" and the look of a wild beast that has been robbed of its young came into her eyes, as she waited for his answer. The doctor knew that she could easily acquire the information from other sources, so thought it best to tell her all that had occurred at once. "The poor girl has appeared to me to have been unwell for some time, Mrs. King--to have had something on her mind, some great worry that has been destroying her peace and undermining her health." "Oh, yes! I know all about that," exclaimed Catherine, impatiently; "but the _shock_--what do you mean by that?" "The shock would not have affected her in the way it did, if she had not been in the unstrung condition I speak of, Mrs. King." Then he told her how a patient suffering from delirium tremens had been brought into the hospital, how his attendants had heard him call out the name of Mary Grimm several times in his delirium, how Mary had been brought into his ward to see if she could identify him, and how she had fainted away on seeing him. After he had completed his narrative, Catherine rose from the chair and paced up and down the room several times, a deep frown on her brow. Then she stopped, and facing the doctor commenced to question him in a calm but abrupt manner. "_Did_ she recognise him?" "I don't know; she is not in a state to explain anything yet." "Was anybody by when she saw him?" "Yes, one of our nurses--a Miss Riley." "Ah!" After a pause she spoke again: "Then the man has not been identified." "Oh yes, he has! I recognised him. He is a barrister; his name is Hudson." Catherine turned her face away that the doctor might not read the terrible expression that had come to it, and which she could not hide. She asked one more question: "You say he was heard to call out the name of Mary Grimm several times--who heard him?" "I believe it was Miss Riley." "Ah!" Any man who has ever been possessed by a mad love for a woman, and suddenly has certain proof brought before him that she has deceived him, that there is another man whom she loves as she never loved him, can to some extent realise what were the feelings of Catherine King, as she listened to the doctor's narrative.