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 with Henry. The boy is unhappy about your health: all your friends are unhappy on that subject. It is of your health I would speak."

"I am quite well," she said briefly.

"Yet changed."

"That matters to none but myself. We all change."

"Will you sit down? Formerly, Miss Keeldar, I had some influence with you—have I any now? May I feel that what I am saying is not accounted positive presumption?"

"Let me read some French, Mr. Moore, or I will even take a spell at the Latin grammar, and let us proclaim a truce to all sanitary discussions."

"No—no: it is time there were discussions."

"Discuss away, then, but do not choose me for your text; I am a healthy subject."

"Do you not think it wrong to affirm, and re-affirm, what is substantially untrue?"

"I say I am well: I have neither cough, pain, nor fever."

"Is there no equivocation in that assertion? Is it the direct truth?"

"The direct truth."

Louis Moore looked at her earnestly.

"I can myself," he said, "trace no indications of actual disease; but why, then, are you altered?"

"Am I altered?"

"We will try: we will seek a proof."

"How?"