“Something must be done. I am losing ground. One half million is safe; the other is almost beyond my reach; but, worse than this, I shall lose Julia herself,” muttered the doctor to himself, as he left Pine Hill one evening. “I would rather have her than all of John Hungerford’s money.” He got into his sulky, and drove off, stung by the madness of disappointment, and fully resolved that something should be done. To the pangs of a love growing every day more hopeless, add the prospect of half a million slipping from his grasp, and the feeling of Dr. Lynch is described. If there was much that was good in him,--as there is in all men,--there was much that was bad--base and wicked beyond the comprehension of an honest man. Those at Pine Hill were pure Christian men and women. They were trusting, confiding, unsuspicious. They could not fathom the depth of evil in the honored guest, the beloved physician. He had sinned and been forgiven. They knew his capacity for evil; but to them he was like the tranquil summer sea, which the storms of winter lash into fury, and make the most treacherous of elements. Dr. Lynch went to Pine Hill the next day. He sat in the sitting-room with the family, giving his opinion in regard to the sanitary effects of bathing, called forth by a project of Eugene’s to erect a bathing establishment in each of the two villages. Dick Birch entered while he was there. He looked paler than usual, which the quick eye of Julia promptly detected. “Are you ill, Dick?” she asked, in a tone so tender that the doctor wished he could be sick himself, in order to be spoken to so fondly. “No; not ill; I have the headache,” replied Dick, pressing his hand to his forehead. “Can I do anything for you?” continued Julia. “Let me bathe your head in cologne.” “Thank you, Julia; it is hardly necessary that anything should be done,” replied Dick, with a grateful smile. “Let me prescribe for you, Mr. Birch,” interposed Dr. Lynch. “No, I thank you; I don’t believe in your system, doctor,” laughed Dick. He went to the library, and presently returned with a little vial filled with small globules. “This is my medicine for the headache,” he said, exhibiting the vial. “What is it?” asked the doctor. “Belladonna.” Dr. Lynch laughed heartily, and indulged in some sharp strictures upon homœopathy; called it a humbug and a delusion. “One thing is certain, doctor,” replied Dick, as he swallowed half a dozen of the globules, “either homœopathy is true as a medical science, or all medicines are unnecessary.” “That is a rather violent conclusion.” “I have taken no medicine but these globules for ten years, except a blue pill you prescribed for me last summer; and I was a fool to take that.” “Because you have not been very sick.” “Yes, I had a fever four years ago.” “Then you got well in spite of your medicine, not on account of it.” “But it proves that medicine was not necessary, if it does not show that my system is correct.”