What is it ?" In another moment she had flung herself on his breast, clasped her arms round his neck, and was kissing his pale changed face as she had never done before.
"Norman, my darling husband, you are ill," she said--"ill, and you will not tell me.

That is why you sent me away." He tried to unclasp her arms, but she clung the more closely to him.
"You shall not send me away.

You wish to suffer in silence?
Oh, my darling, my husband, do you forget that I am your wife, for better, for worse, in sickness and in health?
You shall not suffer without my knowledge." "I am not ill, Madaline," he said, with a low moan.

"It is not that." "Then something has happened--you have been frightened." He unclasped her arms from his neck--their caress was a torture to him.
"My poor darling, my poor wife, it is far worse than that.

No man has ever seen a more ghastly specter than I have seen of death in life." She looked round in quick alarm.
"A specter!" she cried fearfully; and then something strange in his face attracted her attention.