his changed and working countenance; cold drops stood upon the rigid and
marble brow, the lips writhed as if in bodily torture, the muscles of the
face had fallen, and there was a wildness which appalled her in the fixed
and feverish brightness of the eyes.

"You are ill, Ernest,--dear Ernest, you are ill,--your look freezes me!"

"Nay, Evelyn," said Maltravers, recovering himself by one of those
efforts of which men who have _suffered without sympathy_ are alone
capable,--"nay, I am better now; I have been ill--very ill--but I am
better!"

"Ill! and I not know of it?" She attempted to take his hand as she spoke.
Maltravers recoiled.

"It is fire! it burns! Avaunt!" he cried, frantically. "O Heaven!
spare me, spare me!"

Evelyn was not seriously alarmed; she gazed on him with the tenderest
compassion. Was this one of those moody and overwhelming paroxysms to
which it had been whispered abroad that he was subject? Strange as it
may seem, despite her terror, he was dearer to her in that hour--as she
believed, of gloom and darkness--than in all the glory of his majestic
intellect, or all the blandishments of his soft address.

"What has happened to you?" she said, approaching him again; "have you
seen Lord Vargrave? I know that he has arrived, for his servant has been
here to say so; has he uttered anything to distress you? or has--" (she
added falteringly and timidly)--"has poor Evelyn offended you? Speak to
me,--only speak!"