Every day, when tender messages arrived for him with presents of fruit and flowers, he mentally thanked Heaven that one woman, at least, truly loved and remembered him in his hour of trouble. When, however, the messages with their accompanying gifts of fruit and flowers ceased to arrive, he wondered at the omission and became querulously suspicious. Why had she forgotten him? What was the reason of this sudden change? Could she be false to him, seeing that she had made such protestations of love? No, it could not be, and yet--there must be some reason. These were the questions he kept continually asking himself, and thereby working himself into such mad frenzies, that it seemed as though nothing could avert the threatened attack of brain fever. True to her promise, which would cost her too much to break, Mrs. Veilsturm had departed from San Remo and taken up her abode at Nice, together with the Major, Dolly Thambits and Mr. Jiddy, alleging that she found the Italian watering-place dull and preferred the lively Gauls to the more sedate Latins. Errington, however, knew nothing of this sudden exodus, and his excited brain suggested a thousand reasons for the sudden silence of his quondam charmer. She was ill! She was afraid of exciting him. She had been called to England on business! What could be the reason of this sudden change from attention to neglect, from warmth to coldness? And day and night, and night and day, the weary brain puzzled over these perplexing questions, suggesting and discarding a thousand answers with every tick of the clock. Eustace did his best to allay his cousin's excitement without telling him the truth, but all to no purpose, so, in despair, he spoke seriously to Storge as to what was best to be done under the circumstances. "Things can't go on like this much longer," he said decisively, "if my cousin was ill when I arrived, he seems to me to be much worse now." "It's a very difficult case," remarked Storge musingly. "So difficult, that I hardly know what step to take. I've made him keep to his room, see no one, given him sedatives, and yet he is no better. In fact, I think we're only at the beginning of the trouble." "Well, I've got that woman out of the way," said Eustace bluntly, "so that is something gained." "I'm not so sure of that," replied the doctor, biting his nails, a habit he had when irritated; "of course I advised it, and it was done for the best, still, upon my soul Mr. Gartney you must think me a fool. Here am I, a duly accredited M.D., yet I don't know what steps to take in order to cure my patient." "It is perplexing," sighed Eustace, drumming with his fingers on the table. "Errington has got it into his head that this woman is his good angel--faugh! to what lengths will love carry a man." "But you said he was not in love with her."