'I am quite strong,' she said, 'much stronger than you suppose; and though I have never seen any one in fever, I am not unaccustomed to nursing, as I watched by the bedside of my father during his last illness. At all events, I will see how I succeed. There is no medicine, you say, to be given for the next two hours. Leave me, please, until then. I shall be better able to know what I have undertaken by that time.' As soon as the woman had left the room, May took the candle, and shading it with her hand, approached the bed. Her husband lay there, sleeping heavily. May thought him much changed; his cheeks were hollow and sunken, thus giving greater prominence to the hard cynical expression which had always detracted from his good looks. His lips were shut, his brow was contracted, and from time to time he uttered sounds more like the ebullitions of wrath than the wailings of despair. As she stood by the bedside gazing at him, he turned round, and soon afterwards opened his eyes. As soon as she perceived this, May shrank behind the curtain, but it was too late; Lord Forestfield had seen her, or, rather, had noticed the fluttering of her robe without recognising its wearer, and, after one or two inarticulate efforts, he said, in a low and feeble voice: 'Are you there again, Mélanie? For how many nights now have I seen you standing there, glaring at me with those bright black eyes, but never saying a word? What makes me so weak, I wonder? I seem to be tied to this bed without a possibility of moving from it. Mélanie darling, have some pity on me Why are you always so cruel now? You were not so once; recollect the happy days we have passed together. Sing to me, Mélanie, my loved one; sing what you first sang to me that day at the Gorge de Franchard--"Pour que je t'aime, ô mon poëte!" Ah, I have forgotten it like everything else; my memory is all gone now. No, stay; sing me this verse: "L'oiseau qui marche dans l'allée S'effraye et part au moindre bruit; Ma passion est chose ailée Et s'envole quand on la suit."' As he ceased murmuring these words he made an attempt to touch her hand, but May hastily drew back. 'This is too much,' she said, as she sank into a chair; 'I had not looked for anything like this;' and she burst into tears. CHAPTER XIX. RELEASED.