me of every moral axiom I may have been guilty of, I shall begin to remind you of what you did!"

"Of what I did?"

"Yes. I've not forgotten it, if you have. Don't you remember?"—very softly.

"We'd better wake the Rector up, I think," I said, hastily, as I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks at the remembrance.

"Oh, I didn't mind. I rather liked it. In fact, I shouldn't mind if you did it again.”

A pause.

"Where's the teapot?" I said in desperation, conscious of the feeble bathos of the observation, but feeling just then that silence was as embarrassing as speech. Harold reached over, passed the teapot, and as I took it from him he retained my hand, and then, bending down, he kissed me.

With a precautionary cough and considerable audible yawning, the Rector apprised us of the fact that he was awake, and, discreetly waiting until we had started guiltily apart and Harold had been able to assume an air of gigantic unconsciousness, he said

"Are we going to have some tea presently? We mustn't forget we have to be back in good time."

I have no very clear recollection of exactly what happened next. I know that I was filled with a vague and an unspeakable bliss, and I believe we both took great interest in the Rector, forcing upon him delicacies that he repeatedly refused, and talking with great geniality upon his own pet subjects, in

I

which I am afraid we were both rather at sea, and I have a strong suspicion that the conversation, although vaguely thrilling, was disconnected and irrelevant. The Rector, however, was extremely good-humoured, although, I think, conscious of the electrically-charged atmosphere in his vicinity. don't even clearly remember much of the return journey-except that it was all delightful, and that when the Rector didn't read a newspaper he went to sleep. At Paddington, I know, his feeble suggestion in favour of a four-wheeler was immediately negatived by Harold, who represented any and every four-wheeler to be nothing more than the favourite ambuscade of the common bacillus, and that our only chance of safety lay in a hansom, to which proposal the Rector peacefully agreed. Harold explained that it wouldn't do to crowd uncle at all as the slightest pressure might induce a return of his sciatica, wherefore-solely in uncle's interests-I sat rather closer to Harold than might otherwise have been considered quite correct-particularly as he found it expedient to economise space by passing his arm round my waist. To all of which manoeuvring the Rector apparently paid no attention, although, by the occasional and kindly twinkling of his eyes, I knew that none of it escaped him.

We were, fortunately, able that evening to catch the last train from Victoria to the peaceful spot that for both of us now respresented home, for the last sad office we could render poor Isabel did not detain us long. Harold, of course, came to see us off, and

we steamed from the station with his last good-bye. ringing in our ears, and the remembrance of his last kiss upon my lips.

CHAPTER XVIII

IN A LUNATIC ASYLUM

A LARGE, low, and rambling old house, standing enclosed in its own grounds, and situated in the most picturesque and well-wooded stretch of country I think I have ever seen; trim flower-boxes at each of the many old mullioned windows; an ivy-covered porch with a climbing rose-bush that straggled over the lower windows, filling the rooms with the sweet scent of its delicate blossoms-this was "The Priory," and The Priory was the Private Asylum for Lunatics where, under Dr. Magee's advice and guidance, I was temporarily sent to nurse a monomaniac, stricken with one of the most terrible diseases that outraged Nature can inflict.

There was certainly but little suggestion of an Asylum in the appointments of the house, nor yet in the comfortable and even luxurious arrangements for the inmates; for, although every precaution was taken for the patients' safety, both collectively and individually, the restrictions were not painfully obtrusive, nor was the system of surveillance uncomfortably apparent. In every case that was received

money could afford to be lavished, so that the restraint which was so necessary was as little noticeable as possible.

I hardly know what I had expected to find-beyond a grim and barrack-like building, with barred windows and padded rooms, and a reckless profusion of straight-jackets, and lunatics gibbering at me from every unexpected corner. Certainly I was entirely unprepared for the spectacle of a lawn-tennis tournament in the grounds at the rear of the house, and to learn, too, that each one of the combatants was suffering from some form of mental derangement.

"And it is a terrible thing to recognise and acknowledge," the Matron told me, as we paused for a moment on our journey upstairs to glance from a landing window at the patients in the grounds; "but in the majority of cases religion had been, directly or indirectly, the cause of the mind giving way. You see that girl sitting over there by herself?-on the seat underneath that chestnut-with the writing-pad in her lap. She spends all her time so. Before she came to us-she's very well connected and very wealthy she was the editress of some religious publication. I don't know whether you ever heard of The Prophet's Mantle?' No? Nor anyone else, I believe; but at any rate she was wrapped up in it, body and soul. Lost money regularly over it every month. And it was all about Daniel. She used to try and prove what had happened and what was going to happen by adding together figures out of the Book of Daniel and subtracting other things from