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‘Lucy, Lucy, my poor little god-sister (if there be such a relationship), here—here is your letter. Why is it not better worth such tears, and such tenderly exaggerating faith!’

Curious, characteristic manoeuvre! His quick eye had seen the letter on the floor where I sought it; his hand, as quick, had snatched it up. He had hidden it in his waistcoat pocket. If my trouble had wrought with a whit less stress and reality, I doubt whether he would ever have acknowledged or restored it. Tears of temperature one degree cooler than those I shed would only have amused Dr. John.

Pleasure at regaining made me forget merited reproach for the teasing torment; my joy was great; it could not be concealed: yet I think it broke out more in countenance than language. I said little.

‘Are you satisfied?’ asked Dr. John.

I replied that I was—satisfied and happy.

‘Well then,’ he proceeded, ‘how do you feel physically? Are you growing calmer? Not much; for you tremble like a leaf still.’

It seemed to me, however, that I was sufficiently calm: at least I felt no longer terrified. I expressed myself composed.

‘You are able, consequently, to tell me what you saw? Your account was quite vague, do you know? You looked white as the wall; but you only spoke of “something,” not defining what. Was it a man? Was it an aimal? What was it?’

‘I never will tell exactly what I saw,’ said I, ‘unless some one else sees it too, and then I will give corroborative testimony; but otherwise, I shall be discredited and accused of dreaming.’

‘Tell me,’ said Dr. Bretton; ‘I will hear it in my professional character: I look on you now from a professional point of view, and I read, perhaps, all you would conceal—in your eye, which is curiously vivid and restless; in your cheek, which the blood has forsaken; in your hand, which you cannot steady. Come, Lucy, speak and tell me.’

‘You would laugh—?’

‘If you don’t tell me you shall have no more letters.’

‘You are laughing now.’

‘I will again take away that single epistle: being mine, I think I have a right to reclaim it.’

I felt raillery in his words: it made me grave and quiet; but I folded up the letter and covered it from sight.

‘You may hide it, but I can possess it any moment I choose. You don’t know my skill in sleight of hand: I might practise as a conjuror if I liked. Mama says sometimes, too, that I have an harmonizing property of tongue and eye; but you never saw that in me—did you Lucy?’

‘Indeed—indeed—when you were a mere boy I used to see both: far more then than now—for now you are strong, and strength dispenses with subtlety. But still, Dr. John, you have what they call in this country “un air fin,”es that nobody can mistake. Madame Beck saw it, and—’

‘And liked it,’ said he, laughing, ‘because she has it herself. But, Lucy, give me that letter—you don’t really care for it.’

To this provocative speech I made no answer. Graham in mirthful mood must not be humoured too far. Just now there was a new sort of smile playing about his lips—very sweet, but it grieved me somehow—a new sort of light sparkling in his eyes: not hostile, but not reassuring. I rose to go—I bid him good-night a little sadly.

His sensitiveness—that peculiar, apprehensive, detective faculty of his—felt in a moment the unspoken complaint—the scarce-thought reproach. He asked quietly if I was offended. I shook my head as implying a negative.

‘Permit me, then, to speak a little seriously to you before you go. You are in a highly nervous state. I feel sure from what is apparent in your look and manner, however well-controlled, that whilst alone this evening in that dismal, perishing sepulchral garret—that dungeon under the leads, smelling of damp and mould, rank with pthisis and catarrh: a place you never ought to enter—that you saw, or thought you saw, some appearance peculiarly calculated to impress the imagination. I know you are not, nor ever were, subject to material terrors, fears of robbers, &c.—I am not so sure that a visitation, bearing a spectral character, would not shake