“Miss Earl, are you an orphan?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you any living relatives?”

“None that I ever heard of.”

“Did any of your family die suddenly?”

“Yes, I have been told that my mother died while apparently as well as usual, and engaged in spinning; and my grandfather I found dead, sitting in his rocking-chair, smoking his pipe.”

Dr. Howell cleared his throat, sighed and was silent.

He saw a strange, startled expression leap into the large shadowy eyes, and the mouth quivered, the wan face grew whiter, and the thin fingers grasped each other; but she said nothing, and they sat looking at one another.

The physician had come like Daniel to the banquet of life, and solved for the Belshazzar of youth the hideous riddle scrawled on the walls.

“Dr. Howell, can you do nothing for me?”

Her voice had sunk to a whisper, and she leaned eagerly forward to catch his answer.

“Miss Earl, do you know what is meant by hypertrophy of the heart?”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

She shivered slightly.

“Whether you inherited your disease, I am not prepared to say, but certainly in your case there are some grounds for the belief.”

Presently she said abstractedly: 

“But grandpa lived to be an old man.”

The doctor’s eyes fell upon the mosaic floor of the library; and then she knew that he could give her no hope.

When at last he looked up again, he saw that she had dropped her face in her palms, and he was awed by the deathlike repose of her figure, the calm fortitude she evinced.

“Miss Earl, I never deceive my patients.  It is useless to dose you with medicine, and drug you into semi-insensibility.  You must have rest and quiet; rest for mind as well as body; there must be no more teaching or writing.  You are overworked, and incessant mental labor has hastened the approach of a disease which, under other circumstances, might have encroached very slowly and imperceptibly.  If latent (which is barely possible) it has contributed to a fearfully rapid development.  Refrain from study, avoid all excitement, exercise moderately but regularly in the open air; and, above all things, do not tax your brain.  If you carefully observe these directions you may live to be as old as your grandfather.  Heart diseases baffle prophecy, and I make no predictions.”

He rose and took his hat from the table.

“Miss Earl, I have read your writings with great pleasure, and watched your brightening career with more interest than I ever felt in any other female author; and God knows it is exceedingly painful for me to tear away the veil from your eyes.  From the first time you were pointed out to me in church, I saw that in your countenance which distressed and alarmed me; for its marble pallor whispered that your days were numbered.  Frequently I have been tempted to come and expostulate with you, but I knew it would be useless.  You have no reader who would more earnestly deplore the loss of your writings, but, for your own sake, I beg you to throw away your pen and rest.”