“Elsie,” he said, presently, “I so long to be of some use to you, to have your confidence and sympathy, that I must not let you say or do anything to put us in false relations.  I do love you, Elsie, as a suffering sister with sorrows of her own,—­as one whom I would save at the risk of my happiness and life,—­as one who needs a true friend more than any of all the young girls I have known.  More than this you would not ask me to say.  You have been through excitement and trouble lately, and it has made you feel such a need more than ever.  Give me your hand, dear Elsie, and trust me that I will be as true a friend to you as if we were children of the same mother.”

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically.  It seemed to him that a cold aura shot from it along his arm and chilled the blood running through his heart.  He pressed it gently, looked at her with a face full of grave kindness and sad interest, then softly relinquished it.

It was all over with poor Elsie.  They walked almost in silence the rest of the way.  Mr. Bernard left her at the gate of the mansion-house, and returned with sad forebodings.  Elsie went at once to her own room, and did not come from it at the usual hours.  At last Old Sophy began to be alarmed about her, went to her apartment, and, finding the door unlocked, entered cautiously.  She found Elsie lying on her bed, her brows strongly contracted, her eyes dull, her whole look that of great suffering.  Her first thought was that she had been doing herself a harm by some deadly means or other.  But Elsie saw her fear, and reassured her.

“No,” she said, “there is nothing wrong, such as you are thinking of; I am not dying.  You may send for the Doctor; perhaps he can take the pain from my head.  That is all I want him to do.  There is no use in the pain, that I know of; if he can stop it, let him.”

So they sent for the old Doctor.  It was not long before the solid trot of Caustic, the old bay horse, and the crashing of the gravel under the wheels, gave notice that the physician was driving up the avenue.

The old Doctor was a model for visiting practitioners.  He always came into the sick-room with a quiet, cheerful look, as if he had a consciousness that he was bringing some sure relief with him.  The way a patient snatches his first look at his doctor’s face, to see whether he is doomed, whether he is reprieved, whether he is unconditionally pardoned, has really something terrible about it.  It is only to be met by an imperturbable mask of serenity, proof against anything and everything in a patient’s aspect.  The physician whose face reflects his patient’s condition like a mirror may do well enough to examine people for a life-insurance office, but does not belong to the sick-room.  The old Doctor did not keep people waiting in dread suspense, while he stayed talking about the case,—­the patient all the time thinking that he and the friends are discussing some alarming symptom or formidable operation which he himself is by-and-by to hear of.