"Well, no,” replied Mr. Froyte. "We thought that my ward's condition was caused by the shock of her father's death; and, hoping that change would benefit her, have been traveling on the continent and elsewhere. We were recommended to come here, and I took this house, furnished, and have been here about a month."

"Have you tried tonics and exercise-riding, walking?" Doctor Graham looked at Stracey, whose sharp profile was silhouetted against the sunlit window. "Young and cheerful companionship is usually the best tonic in such cases."

Stracey Froyte turned his head slightly, as if he felt the doctor's glance.

"Miss Jermyn walks and rides sometimes with me," he said; "but she generally prefers to be alone." The doctor nodded.

"Yes. please.

Symptomatic of her condition.

Well, I'll see her,

Mr. Froyte conducted him to the next room. Mrs. Froyte was still standing at the head of the couch looking down at the death-like figure, and her husband introduced her, under his breath. Doctor Graham bowed.

"Leave her with me and Mrs. Froyte," he said, his eyes fixed on the girl's face, as if he were-doctor as he wasstartled by its beauty.

Stracey had not moved and did not turn his head when his father entered the drawing-room and sat down softly, but presently got up and fidgetted about the room, every now and then glancing at the handsome, impassive face which seemed to be guarding the secret of its owner's thoughts.

After awhile, Doctor Graham re-entered the room, and James Froyte turned to him expectantly; but Stracey did not

move.

"It is a trance," he said. "One of a kind with which I am unacquainted. I mean personally; I have read about them. It is, as you suggested, Oriental in its nature. She is stillsleeping. You are right not to wake her. While the trances continue I hope to prevent their occurrence-let her alone. I will send her a tonic. It will not be an ordinary one, and I must ask you to follow carefully the directions for its administration-or-well, there will be trouble. For the rest, see that she takes plenty of exercise; tempt her appetite; but, more important than anything else, tempt her away from herself and her grief. Persuade her, if you can without worrying her, to permit you to accompany her in her walks and rides. Get her to ride as much as possible. She ought to

have society: there are some young people in this place, quiet and secluded as it is, and she would be all the better for their society. You are new-comers-I will see what can be done in that direction, if you will allow me."

Mr. Froyte thanked him. There was a pause, then he said in his slow, careful way:

"There is nothing serious, no danger of-"

Doctor Graham was silent for a moment, as he put on his gloves.

"No organic disease, no; but girls of her age and in her condition have an awkward knack of developing serious symptoms, if the trouble be not checked. There is no cause for alarm at present; indeed, but for these peculiar trances, and the want of tone, she appears to be in good health—an almost perfect specimen of the form and face divine," he added almost to himself; "but she requires watching. I will call and see her to-morrow and have a talk with her. I have asked Mrs. Froyte to be careful of that medicine. Just the dose indicated, no more and no less. Good-day."

With his professional short nod, and a glance at the younger of the men, Doctor Graham went out. As he passed the door of the other room he heard a girl's voice: evidently Miss Jermyn's. He paused and listened, and was struck by the tone of the voice, as he had been struck by the beauty of the face. It was musical, there was just the suspicion of a foreign accent -a soft, harmonious sweetness in it—and it was the voice of a lady, of a person higher in the social scale than the Froytes. The strain of sadness and wistfulness in it made it all the sweeter and more impressive.

He had his hand on the handle of the door, but did not turn it: he would think the case out, look up some of the authorities on trances, before he saw her. So that when Mrs. Froyte came out in search of him he had already left the house and was half-way down the drive. She stood irreso

lutely and watched him, then came back to the boudoir.

Kyra was standing by the mantel-piece, leaning on it with one elbow, in an attitude of natural grace which had just the touch of Orientalism which was perceptible in her voice.

"He has gone," said Mrs. Froyte, in her subdued fashion. "He had got as far as the gate.

"It does not matter," said Kyra. "I am sorry you sent for a doctor. Why did you? There is nothing the matter with me."

Mrs. Froyte shook her head.

"James and I, both think that you are not well, that you

ought to have advice; you do not eat, and—and you are always tired-"

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Ah, you cannot say that!" Kyra broke in, with a faint smile. "Don't I take long walks and drives? I can do more than most girls-"

"But you are so tired-at times. You sleep so-so heavily," put in Mrs. Froyte, nervously.

The girl shrugged her shoulders indifferently.

"That goes for nothing. It is only because I want to escape thinking. I used to sleep like it when I was a child. I remember my father"-she paused a moment and her lips quivered, as if something had stabbed her, then she forced herself to go on-" my father being frightened. I think he said that my mother often fell into such long, deep sleeps."

"The doctor-he seems very clever- says that you are to take a great deal of exercise, and with-with company: there is Stracey, you should let him go with you."

The girl's face hardened at the name, and she turned to the window. Mrs. Froyte looked up at her in a timid, deprecatory kind of way.

"And he says that you should have the society of young people.'

Are there any here? No matter. I don't want them. Young people? They would think me too old for them. Poor young people! Why, I am as old as Methuselah!" She turned to the woman again, with a quiet, little gesture of appeal, a bewitching, little movement, almost child-like, and yet instinct with the force of budding womanhood. Ah, don't trouble about me, dear! I shall be all right whenwhen I have learned to forget: but it is so hard to learn!"

As if to escape a continuation of the subject, she passed out of the French window and stood looking for a moment or two before her, then she sank into a deck-chair and leant back, her hands folded loosely in the lap of her soft, black dress, her eyes-the doctor had not seen them or he would have thought her beauty still more wonderful-gazing dreamily at the waning sunset.

When the doctor had left the room, the two Froytes had remained silent for a few minutes, then the father said:

"Do you think he thinks she is in any danger? Those doctors never give themselves away."

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"She may be-yes; in a way, I think she is," replied Stracey. He said she wanted careful watching. There was a pause, then, with his face averted, he said, in a low voice,

as if he were speaking to himself: "She does not know about the-?"

"The will?" faltered the father.

"Of course," with suppressed impatience. "No; I have not told her.

I didn't think it wise."

She was so prostrated that I—

A sneer curved the younger man's thin, cynical lips. "Just so. It wouldn't have been wise. She is not well

enough to consider business. Have you the will? You are sure there is no mistake, that it is quite valid, that it will stand?"

"Quite," replied the father. "Mr. Rolf drew it the night Jermyn died.

"And Rolf died two days afterwards?"

"Yes; a seizure.”

That

"So, no one knows of the will but you-and me?" put in Stracey, quickly, and with an indrawing of his breath. is no one who knows Kyra?"

James Froyte's lips formed the word "No"; it seemed as if he were afraid to voice it.

Stracey leant against the window, glancing sideways and under his lowered lids at his father's pale face, strained by his effort at self-command.

"And by this will, if—if Kyra dies unmarried, the money comes to you?" said Stracey, in a low voice.

Mr. Froyte inclined his head and fidgetted at his lips with his fingers.

"Yes. There there was no one else, no relation to whom he could leave it. We-we were old friends."

"Did he know that the Indian money had fallen to him, that he possessed that as well as the rest?" asked Stracey.

"Yes; he was conscious a few hours before his death, and we told him. He had expected it, and he was glad, thouga he was dying, that it had come-for Kyra's sake."

"And she does not know-knows nothing of the Indian fortune, of the terms of the will," Stracey murmured, as if he wished to be quite certain on the point.

"No," replied James Froyte. "I-I suppose she must be told; of course she must be told. You are poor Jermyn's executor-"

"Yes; why did he select me? He had never seen me?" "I-I advised it. I could not act, as I was mentioned in the will!"

"Yes, yes; I forgot."

"And I-I thought it better that the executor should be— be in the family."

Stracey stole a glance at his father.

"Quite right; quite right. Why go outside it? Besides, Jermyn had no other friends, had he?

"None, or none that I knew of. He had led a perfectly secluded life. Kyra and he were wrapped up in each other. Poor girl!"

"Yes: poor girl!" Stracey echoed the expression of sympathy, mechanically.

His eyes, narrowed to slits were fixed on the floor; he was thinking hard, and James Froyte averted his eyes as if he dreaded to know his son's thoughts.

As Kyra lay back in her chair the murmur of the voices reached her but indistinctly and did not disturb her thoughts. They were necessarily sad, but there was a vague, indefinable strain of fear in them. She was thinking of her childhood, out there in India, of her father's love, her ayah's devotion, the affection amounting almost to worship with which the servants surrounded her. She had reigned there as a little queen. Then came England-her father was English, she was proud of it, prouder still of the fact that she was by birth half, and by nature more than three parts, English. They had travelled about happy and contented in their mutual love, desiring no other companions. Then had come the terrible blow, the irreparable loss which had stricken her down. He

had been snatched from her and she had been left alone without kith or kin, friendless. There were the Froytes, but her brows came together as she thought of them. Mrs. Froyte had been kind to her, in a half-timid fashion-why was she so fearful, so nervous, Kyra asked herself? Mr. Froyte was, no doubt, everything that a guardian could be: and yet-and yet -why did he watch her sideways, why did he avert his eyes when she turned to him? She, herself, was as frank and open as the day-why, he paused to think before he formed his careful speeches.

And the young son, Stracey, who had come from abroad to join the family. Her hands closed on each other as she thought of him. Such girls as Kyra are sensitive to a look, a touch, the half-tone of a voice; then something in Stracey Froyte's face, some fleeting expression hard to define, something in the low voice, in the touch of his thin, long hand were repugnant to her. Whenever he rode or walked with her, she was filled with a vague apprehension; if he sat beside her at the piano her fingers, quick and supple as an Indian's,