bend in the road-"did not that lady just pass within two yards of you?"

And I looked at the Doctor severely.

"I see no one," replied the Doctor, following the direction of my finger.

It had been my opinion for sometime that my poor friend was deranged. This, coupled with the fact that I once caught him in his sanctum reading Neville on Insanity, was conclusive. "I see no one," he repeated.

"Then you must be blind, or stupid."

I instantly repented of my brusqueness. Surely, his infirmity was no fault of his. So I approached him, and said kindly,

"My dear doctor, you should at once make your situation known to your friends. You really should."

With which words I left him.

Dr. Molineux stared at me.

There stood Cecil. The June air drew back the clustered coils of hair that fell over her shoulders, and I then first noticed the unearthly

pallor of her face. It was like a piece of pure Carrara marble.

Cecil seemed to smile upon me imploringly, as she turned into a briery path which branched off from the highway, and led to that tract of woodland which I mentioned in describing the location of my dwelling. I followed.

Her pace now became accelerated. It was with difficulty that I could keep the flying white dress in sight.

On the verge of the forest she paused, and faced me with a hectic light in her eyes. It was

but for an instant, then she plunged into the dense wood.

An agonizing fancy occurred to me. I connected Cecil's wild look with the still deep ponds which lay within the shadow of the vast woodland. The thought gave wings to my feet; I darted after her like an arrow, tearing myself on the vines and briers that stretched forth a million wiry fingers to impede my progress,

We were nearing the largest pond in the wood.

Unless Cecil should alter her course, that would prevent farther flight.

This circular piece of water lay, as it were, in an immense green basin, the banks on every side sloping to the edge of the pond, where the cardinal-flowers bent in groups, staring at the reflection of their flushed faces. At the belt of maples enclosing the sheet of water, Cecil stopped irresolutely. I would have clasped her in my arms, but she escaped me, and ran swiftly toward the pond. Then I heard a splash not so loud as would be made by dropping a pebble into the water. I leaped half-way down the slope.

Cecil had disappeared.

Near the bank, a circle in the pond widened, and widened, and was lost in space. A single silver bubble floated among the tangled weeds that fringed the lip of the shore, and as I looked, this bubble opened, and out of it indolently rose a superb white Water-Lily.

It was no use to look for Cecil there she was!

"You had better come home now," said Dr. Molineux, touching me on the shoulder.

When we reached the main-road, a funeral was passing along slowly, slowly.

People sometimes smile, half-incredulously, when I tell them these things: then I point to that white flower, there, in the glass globe.

CHAPTER VI.

TIRED TO DEATH.

OW that I approach the second important epoch of my lifethe second link in the chain I am forging the joy and anguish which came to me with Cecil Roylstone, must be laid aside, like the fragments of a dream that lie perdu in the memory,

until some odd moment.

I was residing in New Orleans, an invalid. A perusal of some of W-'s letters by a wood fire in the north, had drawn me southward in search of lost vitality. I am not sure it was the most efficacious move; but mine is a malady full of