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186 sense of desolation pained my mind: a feeling that would make its way, rush out, or kill me—like (and this you will understand, Dr. John) the current which passes through the heart, and which, if aneurism or any other morbid cause obstructs its natural channels, seeks abnormal outlet. I wanted companionship, I wanted friendship, I wanted counsel. I could find none of these in closet, or chamber, so I went and sought them in church and confessional. As to what I said, it was no confidence, no narrative. I have done nothing wrong: my life has not been active enough for any dark deed, either of romance or reality: all I poured out was a dreary, desperate complaint".

"Lucy, you ought to travel for about six months: why, your calm nature is growing quite excitable! Confound Madame Beck! Has the little buxom widow no bowels, to condemn her best teacher to solitary confinement?"

"It was not Madame Beck's fault", said I; "it is no living being's fault, and I won't hear any one blamed".

"Who is in the wrong then, Lucy?"

"Me—Dr. John—me; and a great abstraction on whose wide shoulders I like to lay the mountains of blame they were sculptured to bear: me and Fate".

"'Me' must take better care in future", said Dr. John—smiling, I suppose, at my bad grammar.

"Change of air—change of scene; those are my prescriptions", pursued the practical young doctor. "But to return to our muttons, Lucy. As yet, Père Silas, with all his tact (they say he is a Jesuit), is no wiser than you choose him to be; for instead of returning to the Rue Fossette, your fevered wanderings—there must have been high fever"

"No, Dr. John: the fever took its turn that night—now, don't make out that I was delirious, for I know differently".

"Good! you were as collected as myself at this moment, no doubt. Your wanderings had taken an opposite direction to the Pensionnat. Near the Béguinage, amidst the stress of flood and gust, and in the perplexity of darkness, you had swooned and fallen. The priest came to your succor, and the physician, as we have seen, supervened. Between us we procured a fiacre and brought you here. Père Silas, old as he is, would carry you up-stairs, and lay you on that couch himself. He would certainly have remained with you till