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"I will go I will do what you tell me,' said Laura, her voice trembling a little with the effort to calm herself. "I will do anything if you are sure"-she put her hand in its cream-coloured glove upon the dusty table and leaned towards him "if you are sure I shall get my revenge. I am thirsting for it."

Mr. Lingen looked up in a cool business-like way into her face. "Will five years' penal servitude do?"

Laura sprang back-her face lit suddenly with smiles of delightshe clasped her hands with effusion.

"Oh, glorious!" she ejaculated, "Oh, glorious!" she repeated musingly to herself, as, with alacrity, she gathered up her dress and stepped towards the door. Then she paused thoughtfully:

"Am I to tell my uncle I have already been here?"

"Oh, yes, don't make small concealments. You can say you came to me for advice, not wishing to distress him till knew you take public steps."

you must

"Good-bye," she said, and went out, closing the door softly; but just as it was shut she opened it again and came softly and swiftly

in.

"Could we not get penal servitude for life?" she asked with anxiety.

Mr. Lingen looked seriously at her. "I am afraid not," he said, "if it were not necessary to make some bargain with the defence in order to keep your secrets, doubt

less we could obtain a little more than five. But you don't wish to ruin yourself in order to ruin him?"

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"No," answered Laura, "that would be foolish ; and turned again towards the door. This time she really went; he heard the wheels of her carriage.

He threw himself back in his chair and waved his eyeglass languidly about in one hand.

"If I hadn't a considerable interest myself in that girl's fortune and if I hadn't some respect for her family," he said, smilingly, to himself, "I would let her precipitate herself upon her revenge. The little demon-thirsty for it ; and the man has been her lover!"

"I must sell up Yriarte's house at once," he added, more thoughtfully, after a little pause, " and see what is to be got out of his relations."

He rose, adjusted his buttonhole flower, took his hat, and went out.

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suppose he is suffering. He is He is abstemious, and he works hard. But he is of a feeble constitution, and it is intelligible that such a disease as glaucoma should attack him. I entreat you, if you will not examine yourself, and will not let me see him, to send him to an oculist. It is terrible to think that a brief delay may make it too late to save his sight.'

"Young doctors are often afflicted with a mania for operations, and iridectomy is a taking one. But you must find victims for yourself."

Dr. Doldy felt his temper deserting him so rapidly that he went straightway to the door after making this little speech. Ernes

tine followed him.

"I will not say another word if you will examine the eye," she said entreatingly; "but if you will not, I must see Mr. Richy myself."

"That you cannot do; he is in my consulting room."

"I will go to him there."

"Then you may go alone," cried Dr. Doldy, in a sudden uprisal of temper; and he turned back into the drawing-room.

Ernestine ran downstairs, but surely she would not go in. He did not in the least believe that she would really do this which was SO distinctly against his wish.

Each second he expected to hear her returning foot upon the stairs; and, indeed, he half-pictured to himself her laughing face when her lack of courage and her inability to be disobedient should have brought her back into the drawing-room. But as the seconds passed over, his heart sank and his temper rose, for there was no sound until he heard the door of his consulting room shut. stood still, awe-struck; and awestruck probably for the first time

He

in his life. Nothing less than the genius of Shakespeare had ever inspired him with reverence: awe he certainly had not experienced. But that a woman-a young inexperienced doctor and a womanshould overstep the double boundary line existing between themshould disobey him as a wife, dispute his knowledge as an elder doctor, and disregard the etiquettes of both relations, struck him with an utter amazement.

For a moment he was entirely taken aback by her audacity. But when that wave of feeling had passed, he was left only very angry. Anger pure and simple, however, occupied him but for a moment. In the next, curiosity was rampant. There was something entirely new to be seen and to be heard. As soon as this occurred to him, without the briefest hesitation, he took his took his way downstairs, and entered Ernestine's consulting room, which was fortunately empty. He passed straight in, entering with deliberate stealthiness the little ante-chamber which divided the two sanctums. If he had been a trifle less in earnest, he might have paused to laugh at himself for having been so easily put into his wife's position. Ernestine had many a time, and with his approval, listened at his door, to find out how he did things. Their relations were now changed. But he was quite incapable at the time of seeing the humorous side of the situation.

Anger was only kept at bay by sheer curiosity. "Dr. Doldy will be down directly," Ernestine's voice was saying at the instant. "He wished me to apologise for his delay, and he asked me in the meantime to look at your eye. am sure you will allow me to, Mr. Richy; for you know I am a doctor,

too."

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'Does he fear anything local,

then?" said Mr. Richy, in an alarmed voice.

"No," said Ernestine; "but as you suffer so much pain in it, he thought I might as well examine it; for I have been studying the eye of late under special advantages."

"Indeed!" said Mr. Richy; " of course I cannot but be delighted at the honour you are doing me. And, indeed," he added, with rather awkward jocoseness, "under such hands as yours I am sure I must soon be healed of any complaint.'

Dr. Doldy groaned, and a cold dew stood out upon his forehead. This was just about as much as he could bear; and he felt strongly disposed to go in and shake the unfortunate Richy, or do something equally ridiculous. But he controlled himself with an effort, and remained motionless.

He followed the interview now partly by his own knowledge of what must be passing. He heard

Ernestine ask Mr Richy to approach the window; he pictured her beautiful face with its frown of thought, as she moved about, adjusting her patient.

"I will not dilate the pupil," he heard her say, gently, 66 as it causes some inconvenience; but I must ask you to turn the eye towards the nose, in order that the light may be first received by the insensitive part of the optic disc, as, if the light is received straight, it immediately contracts the pupil. Excuse me I will not hurt you; I only wish to restrain the upper lid a little. Will you kindly move the eye up and down?"

The pauses in Ernestine's speech Dr. Doldy filled in pictorially. He beheld her, in his inner visionher dark eyes removed but a few inches from Mr Richy's, which, though partially disabled, yet belonged to "a professed admirer of beauty." It was all very well

while they talked; but he could endure the position no longer. When they became silent, after some two or three immensely long seconds, he walked into the room.

Ernestine had just moved back, and was looking very grave. She turned to him instantly.

"The light is excellent," she said; "you had better examine the eye at once; the ophthalmoscope reveals very characteristic conditions."

She rose from her place, and handed him the little instrument -that simple, subtle, little instrument which Charles Babbage evolved out of his wonderful mind, and presented to the craft before the craft was intelligent developed enough to know how to use it.

or

Dr. Doldy adopted the only possible course open to him if appearances were to be preserved. He sat down in silence, and examined the eye himself.

That done, in silence, he put down the ophthalmoscope, pushed back his chair, and rose in silence.

Ernestine looked up at him hesitatingly, and then spoke; for Mr. Richy was looking in much trepidation from one doctor to the other.

66

"It is as I feared, is it not?" Yes," was Dr. Doldy's monosyllabic reply.

"What is it ?" exclained Mr. Richy, in considerable alarm.

"It is a case of sub-acute glaucoma," replied Dr. Doldy.

"Glaucoma!" exclaimed Mr. Richy. "Why, that's a disease of the eye. You are chaffing me; there is no green in my eye, Dr. Doldy; that I am positive of!"

"No," answered Dr. Doldy, gravely, "the colour in this disease is more often a whitey-brown than a grey-green. Glaucoma is rather a misnomer."

"But are you serious, then ?"

cried Mr. Richy, his face falling. "How about my biliousness? You said that was enough to account for the haziness of my sight."

"Nausea," replied Dr. Doldy, in a tone of subdued fury, "may be described as a new symptom of glaucoma."

"A new symptom," cried Mr. Richy, "what on earth do you

mean ?"

"A symptom," said Ernestine, gently," which has only quite newly been understood to be in connection with a glaucomatous state of the eye; when, as with you, both eyes are affected, but in different degrees, there can be no doubt that the seat of the disorder is in the eye; and in this case the examination with the ophthalmoscope is conclusive; and you will find," she added to Dr. Doldy, "that the globe is perceptibly hard on palpation. You have not touched the globe, have you?"

"No," answered Dr. Doldy," but I am satisfied without that.'

Mr. Richy glared at her.

"Just what I feared, just what I feared; a local disorder of the eye! Good heavens, it will be my ruin!"

"But," said Ernestine, "if ridectomy is performed without delay, your sight will almost certainly be saved."

"Iridectomy," cried Mr. Richy, "cutting out of the iris! Why, what on earth am I to see with if I have my iris cut out? I thought it was necessary to sight."

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plied Dr. Doldy, seriously," I will refer you to a first-rate specialist."

After a little farther talk and arrangement about this, Mr Richy departed in departed in a very ill-humour, giving, as he rose to go, a farewell glance to Ernestine, which was so full of chagrin that she could have felt amused, in spite of her earnest sympathy.

The door closed upon him, and left the two doctors alone in the consulting room. Ernestine was busied in putting aside the instruments which they had been using. Dr. Doldy stood silently observing her.

Silent rage consumed him within. It was only unexpressed because it scarcely knew how to find

a vent.

But when she had finished her task, she turned to him and said, smilingly, "I fancy Mr. Richy thinks that I have given him disease of the eye."

Dr. Doldy made no reply for a moment; and then he said, in a voice which startled her by its unusual vibration, "It is more than even your powers can compass, Ernestine, to carry off such a matter as this lightly."

"I don't understand," she answered, doubtfully.

"I suppose," he went on in a bitter voice, "I am being justly punished for marrying a woman who is determined to be something else besides a woman. I did not object to your being something else, so long as you preserved the appearance of being only a woman in my presence; but when you enter my consulting room as a doctor, and a doctor who is not invited, it appears to me that you change our relations; that we are no longer husband and wife, but simply professional rivals."

"It is a pity," said Ernestine, her face flushing with the sudden emotion of realising for the first

time that he was in earnest, "if you think that our double relations cannot exist, for I do not know how we can destroy either."

She walked away into her own consulting room with a rather less dignified air than usual, for, in spite of her superficial coldness, she was too emotional to be capable of quarrelling with her husband.

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Dr. Doldy almost immediately followed her. "It is of no use, he said, "attempting to put this matter aside in silence. It will be impossible for us to live under the same roof unless you can pay that amount of respect to my position which I have a right to expect from my wife. If such scenes as this are to be repeated, I shall be made ridiculous in the eyes of the profession; but, what will be far worse, my practice will be ruined. And, until your practice is sufficiently successful to take its place, you must see that it is madness to interfere with mine."

"But," said Ernestine, with a little tremble in her voice, "what harm have I done? You yourself allow that I have detected Mr. Richy's real malady."

"That may be," said Dr. Doldy; "and pray what do you think Mr. Richy's club friends will say about the way in which his malady was discovered. It is possible that for about a fortnight we may have an influx of gentlemen with nothing much the matter with them who have heard that in my consulting room there is the probability that a beautiful woman will interfere and take their case in hand. But whether we are likely to build a substantial practice upon such a report my experience would incline me to doubt."

Dr. Doldy had been walking up and down while he spoke, and had avoided looking at Ernestine ; indeed, he was too angry to look at

her. If he had looked he would probably have been a little startled by the vivid colour in her cheek and the flash in her eye. She was smarting beneath the sense of accumulated humiliations. As she listened to his words, which seemed to her, and not without reason, to be full of insult, her mind returned to the treatment which she had already experienced at Laura's hands. hands. Money, which Ernestine perhaps despised more than she had any right to, seemed to her to have degraded the nature of both uncle and niece. Her tongue itched to speak of what she knew, and to reproach her husband with what she had taught herself to look upon as the one spot in his character.

But she restrained herself by a violent effort, and only said, with so much emotion that speech brought the tears into her eyes, "It seems to me that your profes sion is money-making, not medicine. As I have educated myself to follow medicine, I had better take your advice and leave your house before any further difficulties arise."

They had been so absorbed by the intensity of their own feelings that neither of them had been aware that a visitor had arrived, nor had noticed Laura's voice as she spoke to the servants and looked in the other rooms of the house for its inmates.

And so it was that just as Ernestine had uttered these words, which seemed to herself in the intensity of her mode of feeling to have ended for ever the dream of happiness which had existed in her connection with Dr. Doldy, Laura knocked lightly at the door, and without any further announcement entered.

She had heard nothing; but it was not likely that such a quickwitted young woman as Laura could come upon such a scene as that and

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