" it's all her doing! Planned every bit of it,
lock, stock, and barrel. She came to me and
proposed it, and we put our heads together,
and mapped it all out."

A groan came from Mr. Tillotson. "Ah,
exactly.  I thought so. It only wanted that."

"My God!" said the captain, aghast, "what's
this, now?"

"I see it all!" said the other, excitedly; " a
well-contrived scheme, to be sure, How dull of
me! Can't you follow? Oh Heaven, heavens!
Can't she leave me at once, and go away without
torturing me in this way? This is conclusive.
But I shall baffle them yet; I shall not be
pointed out, or laughed at by the world."

"What are you talking of:"

"Listen. Not three weeks ago, she came to
me with a proposal to go off to Italy by herself,
do you see, for her pleasure or health. Now she
proposes that he is to go. Don't you follow?
Is it not cruel, cruel?':"

He seemed to the captain to speak like a frantic
man. His hands shook. Light gleamed from
his eyes. All the captain's common forms of
comfort forsook him, and he sat staring at his
friend quite aghast.

"Now I have discovered the plot; thanks to
you, my dear friend," continued Mr. Tillotson,
pacing up and down furiously; "just in time.
Not a word now, as you value my happiness. I
shall watch them. This explains everything."

"But what makes you think so?" said the
captain.

"Everything," answered the other, fiercely.
"You cannot know. They have kept me in the
dark all this time. She married me under a
pretence of liking me; and I was fool enough
to trust her! Why, in that desk, this moment,
are letters of his; frantic lover's letters, written
years ago! They kept all this from me; but
they shall keep nothing else. And, worse than
that, you know that old business which has
been the misery of my life. God knows, I have
tried to atone for it; and if penitence and suffering
can atone——"

"To be sure—-to be sure," said the captain.
"You may say that, my poor fellow!"

"What do you say to a wife turning herself
into a detective, leaguing with ruffians, planning
it all, giving them money to buy up my
secret from them? And she has it now, knows
it all, and taunted me with it the other day."

The captain still could not find a word to say.
He was in deep pain and distress, for it seemed
to him that his friend was indeed "astray." He
saw, too, that it would be useless to make
farther protest, so he rose to go.

"How hot you are!" he said, as he took his
friend's hand; " why, man, you are in a fever."

"You," said the other, bringing him back,
"are  the only one I can depend on.  You are
true; if I should get ill and become helpless,
you will watch for me, carefully and jealously,
and report everything to me.  Mind, I depend
on you.  For it will be their opportunity."

This was indeed a prophetic precaution. All
through that day Mr.Tillotson struggled through
an oppressive sense of coming sickness; and,
after a severe battle, was next day struck down
by the rising tide of a nervous fever.

CHAPTER XXVIII. MR. TILNEY SERVES THE BANK.

Now began the formalities of a regular sickness.
The doctors came, and among them Sir
Duncan Dennison, that "tip-top medical man,"
who was brought by the captain. He shook
his head, and pointed to his own forehead.
"Bad, bad, my dear captain; therein the mind
must minister to itself!" To which the captain
listening as if they were talismans of gold,
assented with an eager "O yes, of course,
doctor;" though they seemed mysterious and
unintelligible. But though suffering and for a
time in danger, the patient fought a strong
battle by force of will, and fought off the enervating
influences of his malady with indomitable
energy. At times his senses were stolen away.

Then Mrs. Tillotson, a faithful but impassive
nurse, heard strange speeches from him, in
which her name was mixed up, and the words
"cruel," " faithless," "heartless," and with much
self-accusation as being "betrayed," and the
most miserable of men. She went through
her duties faithfully, was the most assiduous
of nurses, but with cold impassiveness, and
almost sternness.

The friends of Mr. Tillotson came frequently,
seriously concerned for his state. Mr. Tilney
often dropped in and sat in a great armchair
down in the drawing-room, sometimes refreshing
himself from a decanter of sherry, and
sometimes turning the chair into a pulpit, saying
that man's life was but a Valley of the Shadow,
that here we were yesterday, and to-day there
we were down upon our backs like infants.
There was our poor friend up there, like a
flower. With this train of reflection stimulated
by other resources, Mr. Tilney began to think
he was contributing essentially to the restoration
of the patient. " We are pulling him
through," he would say, in his arm-chair.

The captain was far more practical, as, indeed,
Mrs. Tillotson found. Once or twice
Ross came, but was not admitted, chiefly by
Diamond's firmness, who heard the angry
voice in the hall, and went down himself to
meet him. Indeed, the captain seemed to have
an influence over him which no one else had;
always meeting him with a good common sense
and a manly independence which awed him.

After one of these interviews, the captain
came in to Mrs. Tillotson. To that lady, indeed,
he was a little cold and distant of late—-
a distinction she remarked at once. The captain
came to her with a sort of apology. " You
know," said he, "he—-poor Tillotson—-so
charged me to see that he did not come in, and
I promised him, you know, on my book-oath.
You know, my dear, it doesn't do while he's
sick; and, indeed, now, if you would take an
old fellow's advice, you would just have done
for good and all with this fellow Ross, and send
him to the right about at once."

The golden-haired girl looked at him with
cold blue eyes. "So, you have caught this
tone," she said, sadly. " They have told you