"That's right, Stephen," said the doctor, heartily, "I'm glad to hear you speak like that. The poor lad has been hardly dealt with. He'll be better by-and-by, mind and body. We'll take care of both. We'll bring him to think differently of all these matters. I'll come up to the Grange to-night and have a talk with him."
True to his word, the doctor visited the Grange in the evening, and had a long discussion with Wilford. He was always more open in his conversation with the doctor than with anyone else.
"This place sickens me—I cannot bear to look around me.—On every side I see something that reminds me of the day I went away—of the night I came back. I hear his voice in every room. The story of the Prodigal is always ringing in my ears. I perpetually see him tearing up the new will or pointing to the blotted lines in the Bible. Let me only get away from here."
"Where will you go?"
"To London, I will lose myself there," he said, grimly, "the place is big enough. I will change my name—my nature too, if I can. Let me live and die uncared for—unknown. I ask no more."
The doctor contemplated him for some moments as though weighing his words and identifying him with them.
"How like his father," muttered Mr. Fuller; "and obstinate, like all the Hadfields;" and the doctor took Wilford's hand abruptly, almost mechanically it seemed, gazing into his face the while. He let go his wrist with a start.
"What a pulse! do you know that you are very feverish—very ill?"
"I fear so. No matter. I must go. I'll get help in London."
"You'll drop down and die on the road before you've gone half a mile from the place."
His words seemed to carry conviction to the mind of Wilford.
"What shall I do?" he asked sadly, his eyes wandering and his limbs falling listlessly.
"I'll tell you," Mr. Fuller answered. "You shall leave here." Wilford brightened. "You shall come to my cottage. I'll watch you till you're quite yourself again. Then you shall leave us, not before. You shall live as quietly and retired as you please; shall see no one. No one shall know of your presence there. You shall be called by what name you choose. You shall have your own way in every thing. Will you come?"
He reflected for a few minutes.
"I may leave when I please?"
"If you are well, mind; not unless."
"You will not seek to change my plans?"
"I will never again allude to them, if you prefer that I should not do so."
"I'll come," said Wilford.
"To-morrow, mind; early. Let them drive you over in the covered carriage."
And the doctor sought out Stephen, and informed him of what had passed.
"We must humour him," said the doctor. "Be satisfied he shall come back here safe and well, in a few weeks; only, if we oppose him now, we drive these strange notions of his about the Grange into confirmed mania: already they grow upon him fearfully; they prey upon him in all sorts of ways. With returning health will come a happier frame of mind. He shall be a new creature soon."
"Let it be as you wish, doctor," said Stephen, and Mr. Fuller returned to his cottage.
He was muttering to himself all the way home.
"Chilliness and shivering," he said; it was almost as though he were quoting from medical notes, "succeeded by heat, restlessness, thirst, and fever. Very bad; very bad. That boy—I can't help calling him so—one thing—he'll always be a boy to me—that boy, mark my words" (he was forgetful apparently of the fact that there was no one present who could do anything of the kind), "that boy will be prostrate in a few days, and I shall have my work cut out for me to set him up again. It will be as much as they'll do to get him round to the cottage to-morrow—acute pains in the knees, wrists, shoulders; shifting pains, which you never know where to expect next, then absolute helplessness. A nice programme for a patient. Very bad, very bad! And then pleurisy, perhaps, or endocarditis, or pericarditis. Yes, and then another job for Mr. Tressell, of Mowle, and another tablet in Grilling Abbots church. And all that comes of improper diet, and disordered blood, and undue exposure to cold. Why won't people be more careful? But they won't, and so it's no use talking. Perhaps it would be worse for doctors if they were to be more careful. Blood-letting? No. I don't think we can afford blood-letting in this case. We'll try iodide of potassium, or perhaps the alkalies and alkaline carbonates with calomel and opium. I've great faith in the alkalies, myself. I remember in that important case at Mowle"—And the doctor wandered into medical reminiscences.
"Have the spare bedroom ready for to-morrow, Vi," he said, entering his cottage, "and everything well-aired. We're going to have a visitor."
"Who, papa dear?" asks Miss Madge; "do tell me!"
"I heard you this morning, Madge. You talk loud enough. Who? why The Vampire!"
TURIN AND ITS "CHAMBER."
Constitutional Italy presents many a gladdening contrast to the bygone era of despotic strait-waistcoatism, but nowhere is the alteration more conspicuous than in the streets of pugnacious little Turin. The place is pretty, but its beauty is not of a fascinating order, being too much like that of some very correct Greek faces, whose regular features convey the impression of something rather strong-minded than sympathetic. Some three years ago it was easy for the stranger to catch the gloom of brooding mischief which hung about the aspect of scanty passers-by in the great thoroughfares, and the Alpine snow that looked down upon him in every odd street seemed in chilling unison with all around. When he had communed with the past in the capital Egyptian Museum, and taken in the mountainous panorama from the Superga, or the less distant eminence of the Monte of the Capuchins, he was content to depart with a growing conviction that the long
