Now, as he drew her arms down from the pillow, and took her thin hot hand in his cool palms, a shadowy smile stole over her features, and she fixed her eyes intently on his. "I knew you would protect me from him." "Protect you from whom?" "From Maurice. He is hiding yonder,--behind the window-curtain." She pointed across the room, and a scowl darkened her countenance. "You have only been dreaming." "No, I am awake; and if you look behind the curtain you will find him. His eyes are burning my face." Willing to dispel this fantasy, Dr. Grey went to the window, and, drawing aside the lace drapery, showed her the vacant recess. "Ah, he has escaped! Well, perhaps it is better so, and there will be no blood shed. Let him go back to Edith,--'golden-haired Edith Dexter,'--and live out the remnant of his days. He came hoping to find me dead, but I am not as accommodating now as formerly. Where are those violets? Tell Elsie to bring the jars in, where I can smell them." He took a bunch of the fragrant flowers from his coat pocket, and put them in her hand, for during her illness she was never satisfied unless there was a bouquet near her; and now, having feebly smelled them, her eyes closed. More than once she had mentioned the name of Edith Dexter, always coupling it with that of Maurice, who she evidently believed was lurking with evil purposes around her home; and Dr. Grey was sorely perplexed to follow the thread that now and then appeared, but failed to guide him to any satisfactory solution of the mystery. He knew that since she made "Solitude" her place of residence, Mrs. Gerome had never met Muriel's governess, and he conjectured that she had either known her in earlier years or now alluded to another person bearing the same name. Miss Dexter was very fair, with a profusion of light yellow hair, and suited in all respects the incoherent description that fell from the sick woman's lips. While at home for a short time that afternoon, Dr. Grey had spoken of the dangerous condition of his patient, and asked the governess if she had ever seen or known Mrs. Gerome. Without hesitation, Edith Dexter quietly replied in the negative. Formerly he had indulged little curiosity with reference to the widow's history, but since she had become endeared to him, he was conscious of an earnest desire to possess himself of a record of all that had so darkened and chilled the life of the only woman he had ever loved. Once she had been merely an interesting psychological puzzle, and in some degree a physiological anomaly: but from the day of Elsie's death, his heart had yielded more and more to the strange fascination she exerted over him; and now, as he sat looking into her face, so mournfully sharpened and blanched by disease, he acknowledged to his own soul that if she should die the brightest and dearest hopes that ever gladdened his life would be buried in her grave.