He gave me a very curt “good-night,” and turned back to his papers,—­the letters with the black edge, either by my imagination or in reality, always keeping uppermost.  I went to my own room for my lamp, and then alone proceeded to the silent shrine in which the portrait hung.  I at least would look at her to-night.  I don’t know whether I asked myself, in so many words, if it were she who—­or if it was any one—­I knew nothing; but my heart was drawn with a softness—­born, perhaps, of the great weakness in which I was left after that visitation—­to her, to look at her, to see, perhaps, if there was any sympathy, any approval in her face.  I set down my lamp on the table where her little work-basket still was; the light threw a gleam upward upon her,—­she seemed more than ever to be stepping into the room, coming down towards me, coming back to her life.  Ah, no! her life was lost and vanished:  all mine stood between her and the days she knew.  She looked at me with eyes that did not change.  The anxiety I had seen at first seemed now a wistful, subdued question; but that difference was not in her look but in mine.

* * * * *

I need not linger on the intervening time.  The doctor who attended us usually, came in next day “by accident,” and we had a long conversation.  On the following day a very impressive yet genial gentleman from town lunched with us,—­a friend of my father’s, Dr. Something; but the introduction was hurried, and I did not catch his name.  He, too, had a long talk with me afterwards, my father being called away to speak to some one on business.  Dr.——­ drew me out on the subject of the dwellings of the poor.  He said he heard I took great interest in this question, which had come so much to the front at the present moment.  He was interested in it too, and wanted to know the view I took.  I explained at considerable length that my view did not concern the general subject, on which I had scarcely thought, so much as the individual mode of management of my father’s estate.  He was a most patient and intelligent listener, agreeing with me on some points, differing in others; and his visit was very pleasant.  I had no idea until after of its special object; though a certain puzzled look and slight shake of the head when my father returned, might have thrown some light upon it.  The report of the medical experts in my case must, however, have been quite satisfactory, for I heard nothing more of them.  It was, I think, a fortnight later when the next and last of these strange experiences came.

This time it was morning, about noon,—­a wet and rather dismal spring day.  The half-spread leaves seemed to tap at the window, with an appeal to be taken in; the primroses, that showed golden upon the grass at the roots of the trees, just beyond the smooth-shorn grass of the lawn, were all drooped and sodden among their sheltering leaves.  The very growth seemed dreary—­the sense of spring in the air making the feeling of winter a grievance, instead of the natural effect which it had conveyed a few months before.  I had been writing letters, and was cheerful enough, going back among the associates of my old life, with, perhaps, a little longing for its freedom and independence, but at the same time a not ungrateful consciousness that for the moment my present tranquillity might be best.