Reclining on the pillows of an invalid chair was Arthur Bohun, looking as yellow as gold, recovering from an attack of jaundice. The day of James Bohun\'s funeral it had poured with rain; and Arthur, standing at the grave, had caught a chill. This had terminated in the jaundice--his unhappy state of mind no doubt doing its part towards bringing on the malady. He was recovering now. Sir Nash, at whose house he lay, was everything that was kind.

Madam was kind also: at least she made a great profession of being so. Her object in life just now was to get her son to marry Miss Dallory. Madam cared no more for her son Arthur or his welfare than she did for Richard North; but she was shrewd enough to foresee that the source, whence her large supplies of money had hitherto been drawn, was now dried up: and she hoped to get supplies out of Arthur for the future. Marrying an heiress, wealthy as Miss Dallory, would wonderfully increase his power to help her. Moreover, she wished to be effectually relieved from that horrible nightmare that haunted her still--the possibility of his marrying Ellen Adair.

So madam laid her plans--as it was in her scheming nature ever to be laying them--and contrived to bring Miss Dallory, at that time in London with her aunt, to Sir Nash Bohun\'s for a few days\' visit when Arthur was recovering. The young lady was there now: and Matilda North was there; and they both spent a good part of every day with Arthur; and Sir Nash made much of Mary Dallory, partly because he really liked her, and partly because he thought there was a probability that she would become Arthur\'s wife. During his illness, Captain Bohun had had time for reflection: not only time, but calmness, in the lassitude it brought to him mentally and physically: and he began to see his immediate way somewhat clearer. To give no explanation to the two ladies at Eastsea, to whom he was acting, as he felt, so base a part, was the very worst form of cowardice; and, though he could not explain to Ellen Adair, he was now anxious to do so to Mrs. Cumberland. Accordingly the first use he made of his partially-recovered health, was to ask for writing materials and write her a note in very shaky characters. He spoke of his serious illness, stated that certain "untoward circumstances" had occurred to intercept his plans, but that as soon as he was sufficiently well to travel he should beg of her to appoint a time when she could allow him a private conference.

The return post brought him a letter from Ellen. Rather to his consternation. Ellen assumed--not unnaturally, as the reader will find--that the sole cause of his mysterious absence was illness; that he had been ill from the first, and unable to travel. It ran as follows:--

"My Dearest Arthur,

"I cannot express to you what my feelings are this morning; so full of joy, yet full of pain. Oh I cannot tell you what the past two or three weeks have been to me; looking back, it almost seems a wonder that I lived through them. For I thought--I will not say here what I thought, and perhaps I could not say, only that you were never coming again; and that it was agony to me, worse than death. And to hear now that you could not come: that the cause of your silence and absence has been dangerous illness, brings to me a great sorrow and shame. Oh Arthur, my dearest, forgive me! Forgive also my writing to you thus freely; but it almost seems to me as though you were already my husband. Had you been called away only half-an-hour later you would have been, and perhaps even might have had me with you in your illness.

"I should like to write pages and pages, but you may be too ill yet to read very much, and so I will say no more. May God watch over ............