"What! to make me well!" she exclaimed. "To imprison my spirit within my body, as you have done Charles'. But stay, if I take your physic, it will not be yet. I will wait to see if Charles is really lost to me for ever. If he does not appear again all this week, then his spirit has no longer power to wander from the body, and if he is lost to me, why should I wander about in the spirit seeking him in vain? I might just as well be cured as not."
"Very well," I said; "then, for the present it is needless to administer any medicine?"
I took up my hat to go, and said that I would call again soon and would bring her tidings of Charles; that I was going there straight from her.
"Stay, stay," she said. "You have told me nothing about him as yet."
"Well, my dear young lady," I said, "I really do not know what to tell you about him. Like yourself, he refused to take my medicine, and----"
"What, he refused! Then how is it that he is getting well? That he does not appear to me now? Doctor, you have had something administered on the sly. I know it. I see it in your face;" and the look that she gave me was so penetrating, that I quite quailed under it, and was obliged to admit that I had.
"And you are going to try the same trick with me. Oh! oh!"
Here she groaned, and threw herself forward on the bed in agony.
"My dear Miss Edith," I said, compassionately, "calm yourself; pray reflect. I can't, I daren't leave you to die. Be persuaded, and take only a little harmless, quieting medicine, not nauseous to the taste, and which may not have the effect of making you cease to dream."
But my fair patient was not to be persuaded, so, with hat in hand, I made another step towards the door.
"Stay, doctor," she said; "whatever you do, keep our conversation secret from the people of the house."
"Certainly," said I. "Has it not been under the 'seal of confession!'"
"True, true," she said; "and, doctor--would you mind--if you are really going to call upon--Charles, to--to--take a relic to him of me?"
"Not at all," I said. "On the contrary, I should be most happy; but--" I said, after a moment's reflection, "but--your parents--would they object, do you think?"
"Oh, don't be afraid, doctor," she replied. "I am very independent, and as for yourself, your name needn't get mixed up in the transaction."