Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, by Various

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He was early up next morning and down on the promenade, but the day was
not likely to tempt Wenna to come out just then. A gray fog hung over
land and sea, the sea itself being a dull, leaden plain. Trelyon walked
about, however, talking to everybody, as was his custom; and everybody
said the fog would clear and a fine day follow. This, in fact, happened,
and still Wenna did not make her appearance. The fog over the sea seemed
to separate itself into clouds: there was a dim, yellow light in the
breaks. These breaks widened: there was a glimmer of blue. Then on the
leaden plain a glare of white light fell, twinkling in innumerable stars
on the water. Everything promised a clear, bright day.

As a last resource he thought he would go and get Juliott Penaluna, and
persuade that young lady to come and be introduced to the Rosewarnes. At
first Miss Penaluna refused point-blank. She asked him how he could
expect her to do such a thing. But then her cousin Harry happened to be
civil, and indeed kind, in his manner to her, and when he was in one of
those moods there was nothing she could refuse him. She went and got
ready with an air of resignation on her comely face.

"Mind, Harry, I am not responsible," she said when she came back. "I am
afraid I shall get into awful trouble about it."

"And who will interfere?" said the young man, just as if he were looking
about for some one anxious to be thrown from the top of the tower on St.
Michael's Mount.

"I shall be accused of conniving with you, you know; and I think I am
very good-natured to do so much for you, Harry."

"I think you are, Jue: you are a thoroughly good sort of girl when you
like to be--that's a fact. And now you will see whether what I have said
about Miss Rosewarne is all gammon or not."

"My poor boy, I wouldn't say a word against her for the world. Do I want
my head wrenched off? But if any one says anything to me about what I
may do to-day, I shall have to tell the truth; and do you know what that
is, Harry? I do really believe you are in love with that girl, past all
argument; and there never was one of your family who would listen to
reason. I know quite well what you will do. If she cares ever so little
for you, you will marry her in spite of everybody, and probably against
her own wish: if she doesn't care for you, you will revenge yourself on
the happy man of her choice, and probably murder him. Well, it isn't my
fault. I know what your mother will say."

"Ah, you don't know, Jue, what my mother thinks of her," he said
confidently.

"Oh yes, mothers think very well of a girl until they discover that she
is going to marry their son."

"Oh, stuff! why the inconsistency--"

"It is the privilege of women to be inconsistent, Harry. Your mother
will detest that girl if you try to marry her."

"I don't care."

"Of course not. No man of your family cares for anything that interferes
with his own wishes. I suppose there's no use in my trying to show you
what a fearful amount of annoyance and trouble you are preparing for
yourself?"

"None. I'll take it as it comes: I'm not afraid."

They got down to the promenade; the forenoon was now bright and
cheerful; a good many folks had come out to enjoy the sunlight and the
cool sea-breeze. Miss Juliott was not at all disinclined to walk there
with her handsome cousin, though he had forgotten his gloves and was
clearly not paying her very special attention.

"Jue," he said suddenly, "I can see Miss Rosewarne right at the end of
this road: can't you?"

"I haven't got the eyes of a hawk, you stupid boy!" his cousin said.

"Oh, but I can recognize her dress a dozen times as far away. These are
her pet colors at present--a soft cream-color and black, with bits of
dark red. Can you see now?"

"I never saw you pay the least attention before to a lady's dress."

"Because you don't know how _she_ dresses," he said proudly.

She was coming along the Parade all alone.

"Well, it _is_ a pretty dress," Miss Juliott said, "and I like the look
of her face, Harry. You can't expect one girl to say any more than that
of another girl, can you?"

"This is a very nice way of being able to introduce you," he said. "I
suppose you will be able to chaperon each other afterward, when her
mother isn't able to go out?"

Wenna was coming quietly along, apparently rather preoccupied. Sometimes
she looked out, with her dark, earnest and yet wistful eyes, at the
great plain of water quivering in the sunshine: she paid little heed to
the people who went by. When at length she did see Harry Trelyon, she
was quite near him, and she had just time to glance for a moment at his
companion. The next moment--he could not tell how it all happened--she
passed him with a slight bow of recognition, courteous enough, but
nothing more. There was no especial look of friendliness in her eyes.

He stood there rather bewildered.

"That is about as good as the cut direct, Harry," his cousin said. "Come
along--don't stand there."

"Oh, but there's some mistake, Jue," he said.

"A girl never does a thing of that sort by mistake. Either she is vexed
with you for walking with me--and that is improbable, for I doubt
whether she saw me--or she thinks the ardor of your acquaintance should
be moderated; and there I should agree with her. You don't seem so vexed
as one might have expected, Harry."

"Vexed!" he said. "Why, can't you tell by that girl's face that she
could do nothing capricious or unkind? Of course she has a reason; and I
will find it out."

CHAPTER XXV.

NOT THE LAST WORD.

As soon as he could decently leave his cousin at home, he did; and then
he walked hastily down to the house in which Mrs. Rosewarne had taken
rooms. Miss Rosewarne was not at home, the small maid-servant said. Was
Mrs. Rosewarne? Yes; so he would see her.

He went up stairs, never thinking how his deep trouble about so
insignificant an incident would strike a third person.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said right out, "I want you to tell me if Wenna
wishes our acquaintance to end. Has she been speaking to you? Just now
she passed me in the street as if she did not wish to see me again."

"Probably," said Mrs. Rosewarne, amused as well as surprised by the
young man's impetuosity, "she did not see you then. Wenna often passes
people so. Most likely she was thinking about other things, for she had
another letter from Jamaica just before she went out."

"Oh, she has had another letter from Jamaica this morning?" Trelyon
said, with an angry light appearing in his eyes. "That is it, is it?"

"I don't understand you," Mrs. Rosewarne was saying, when both of them
heard Wenna enter below.

"Mrs. Rosewarne," he said with a sudden entreaty in his voice, "would
you mind letting me see Wenna alone for a couple of minutes? I want to
ask her if she is offended with me: you won't mind, will you?"

"Not in the least," she said, good-naturedly; and then she added, at the
door, "Mind, Mr. Trelyon, Wenna is easily hurt. You must speak gently to
her."

About a minute afterward Wenna, having laid her hat and shawl aside,
came into the room. When she found Trelyon there alone, she almost
shrank back, and her face paled somewhat: then she forced herself to go
forward and shake hands with him, though her face still wore a
frightened and constrained look.

"Wenna," he said, "don't go away: I want to speak to you for a minute.
You are offended with me about something, and I want you to tell me why.
If you wish our friendship to cease, say so, and I will obey you; but
you must tell me why first."

"I am not offended with you, Mr. Trelyon," she said in a low and nervous
voice. "Do not think that. But--but I think it will be better if you
will let our friendship cease, as you say."

"Oh no," he said, "I will not in this fashion. You've got to tell me
what is the matter first. Now remember this. Not very long ago you chose
to quarrel with me about nothing--absolutely about nothing. You know
quite well that I meant no harm to you by lending Mr. Roscorla that
money, yet you must needs flare up and give it me as hot as you could,
all for nothing. What could I do? Why, only wait until you saw what a
mistake you had made."

"It was very wrong of me," she said: "I ask your forgiveness. But now it
is quite different: I am not angry with you at all. I should like to
remain your friend, and yet I think it better not. I--I cannot explain
to you, Mr. Trelyon, and I am sure you won't ask me when I say so."

He looked at her for a moment, and then he said, gently and yet firmly,
"Look here, Wenna. You think I am only a boy--that may or may not
be--but I am going to talk reasonably to you for once. Come over to this
chair by the window and sit down."

She followed him in passive obedience. She took the one chair, he the
other.

"Perhaps I am only a boy," he said, "but I have knocked about a good
deal, and I have kept my eyes as wide open as most folks. I suppose
ill-natured people might say that as I had nothing to do at Eglosilyan,
I wanted to have a flirtation with the only girl who was handy. I know
better. Year after year I saw more and more of you, bit by bit, and that
after I had been abroad or living in other places in England from time
to time. I got to believe that I had never seen anywhere any girl or
woman who was so honest as you are, and good in a dozen secret ways that
needed a deal of discovering. I found out far more about you than you
imagined. I heard of you in cottages that you never knew I was in; and
everything I heard made me respect you more and more. Mind this, too. I
had no sort of personal liking for the sort of thing you were doing. I
don't admire beastly little rooms and poverty and sick people as
appealing to a fine sentiment. There never was anything of the parson or
the benevolent old lady about me. I would rather give half a crown to an
impertinent little boy who had just whopped another boy bigger than
himself than give a halfpenny tract to a sickly child in its mother's
arms: that's original sin in me, I suppose. But all that squalid sort of
work you were in only made the jewel shine the more. I used to think I
should like to marry a very grand woman, who could be presented at court
without a tremor, who would come into a drawing-room as if she was
conferring a favor on the world at large; and I certainly never thought
I should find the best and finest woman I had ever seen in back kitchens
sewing pinafores for children. And then when I found her there, wasn't
it natural I should put some store by her friendship? I suppose you
didn't know what I thought of you, Wenna, because I kept chaffing you
and Mabyn? I have told you something of it now; and now I want you to
say whether you have a right to shunt me off like this, without a word
of explanation."

She sat still, silent and nervous. The rude and impetuous eloquence of
his speech, broken by many a hesitating stammer, had touched her. There
was more thoughtfulness and tenderness in this wild lad than she had
supposed.

"How can I explain?" she burst out suddenly. "I should cover myself with
shame!"

"And what have you to be ashamed of?" he said with a stare. The distress
she was obviously suffering was so great that he had almost a mind to
take her at her word and leave the house without further ado.

Just at this moment, when he was considering what would be the most
generous thing to do, she seemed to nerve herself to speak to him, and
in a low and measured voice she said, "Yes, I will tell you. I have had
a letter this morning from Mr. Roscorla. He asks me if it is true that
you are paying me such attention that people notice it; and he asks me
if that is how I keep my promise to him."

Something like a quiver of rage passed through the young man at this
moment, but his teeth were kept firmly together. She did not look up to
his face.

"That is not all. I must tell you that I was deeply shocked and grieved
by this letter; but on looking back over the past six weeks I think a
suspicious person might have been justified in complaining to Mr.
Roscorla. And--and--and, Mr. Trelyon, did you see that dried flower in
my Prayer-book last night?"

Her resolution was fast ebbing away: he could see that her hands were
clasped piteously together.

"Yes, I did," he said boldly.

"And oh what could you have thought of me?" she cried in her distress.
"Indeed, Mr. Trelyon, it was all a mistake. I did not keep the flower--I
did not, indeed. And when I thought you had seen it I could have died
for shame."

"And why?" he said in a way that made her lift up her startled eyes to
his face. There was a strange look there, as of a man who had suddenly
resolved to dare his fate, and yet was imploringly anxious as to the
result. "For you have been frank with me, and so will I be with you. Why
should you not have kept that flower? Yes, I sent it to you, and with
all the purpose that such a thing could carry. Yes, you may be as angry
as you please; only listen, Wenna. You don't love that man whom you are
engaged to marry; you know in your heart that you do not believe in his
love for you; and are you surprised that people should wish to have you
break off an engagement that will only bring you misery?"

"Mr. Trelyon!"

"Wenna, one minute: you must hear me. Do with my offer what you
like--only here it is: give me the power to break off this engagement,
and I will. Give me the right to do that. Don't mind me in the matter.
It is true I love you--there, I will say it again: there is nothing I
think of from morning till night but my love for you--and if you would
say that some time I might ask you to be my wife, you would give me more
happiness than you could dream of. But I don't wish that now. I will
remain your friend if you like, Wenna; only let me do this thing for
you, and when you are free you can then say yes or no."

She rose, not proud and indignant, but weeping bitterly. "I have
deserved this," she said, apparently overwhelmed with mortification and
self-reproach. "I have earned this shame, and I must bear it. I do not
blame you, Mr. Trelyon: it is I who have done this. How many weeks is it
since the man left England to whom I promised to be faithful? and
already--But this I can do, Mr. Trelyon: I will bid you good-bye now,
and I will never see you again."

Her face was quite pale. She held out her hand.

"No," he said firmly. "We don't part like that, Wenna. First, let me say
that you have nothing to accuse yourself of. You have done nothing and
said nothing of which any man, however mean and suspicious, could
complain. Perhaps I was too hasty in speaking of my love for you. In
that case I've got to pay for my folly."

"And it is folly, Mr. Trelyon," she said passionately, and yet with
nothing but tenderness in her face. "How could you have thought of
marrying me? Why, the future that ought to lie before you is far more
than you can imagine yet; and you would go and hamper it by marrying an
innkeeper's daughter! It is folly indeed, and you will see that very
soon. But--but I am very sorry all this has occurred: it is another
grief to me that I have troubled you. I think I was born to bring grief
to all my friends."

He was anxiously debating what he should do; and he needed all his wits
at that moment, for his own feelings were strong within him, and
clamoring for expression. Should he insist? Should he bear down all
opposition? Happily, quieter counsels prevailed, for there was no
mistake as to the absolute truthfulness of what the girl had said.

"Well, Wenna," he said, "I will do anything you like, only to remain
your friend. Is that possible? Will you forgive all that I have said if
I make you a promise not to repeat it, and never again to mention your
engagement to Mr. Roscorla?"

"No, we must part now altogether," she said slowly. Then by haphazard
she glanced up at his face for a moment, and there was a great sadness
in her eyes. "It is a hard thing to part. Perhaps it will not be
necessary that you should never come to see me. But we must not be
friends as we have been, for I have my duty to do toward him."

"Then I may come to see you sometimes?"

She hesitated: "You may come to see my mother sometimes. And I will
always think of you as a dear friend, whether I see you or not."

He went outside, and drew a long breath. "I had to keep a tight grip on
the reins that time," he was thinking to himself--"a precious tight
grip; but I did it."

He thought of the look there was in her eyes when she finally bid him
goodbye. His face grew the happier as he thought of it. He was clearly
not at all down-hearted about his rejection: on the contrary, he went
and told his cousin Juliott that the little affair of the morning had
been quite satisfactorily arranged, that Miss Wenna and he were very
good friends again, and that it was quite a mistake to imagine that she
was already married to Mr. Roscorla.

"Harry," said his cousin, "I strictly forbid you to mention that
gentleman's name."

"Why, Jue?" he said.

"Because I will not listen to the bad language you invariably use
whenever you speak of him; and you ought to remember that you are in a
clergyman's house. I wonder Miss Rosewarne is not ashamed to have your
acquaintance, but I dare say you amend your ways when you are in her
presence. She'll have plenty to reform if ever she takes you for a
husband."

"That's true enough, Jue," the young man said penitently. "I believe I'm
a bad lot, but then look at the brilliant contrast which the future will
present. You know that my old grandmother is always saying to me,
'Harry, you were born with as many manners as most folks, and you've
used none; so you'll have a rare stock to come and go on when you
begin.'"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FEVER.

At present all branches of Science possess an intrinsic interest for
every intelligent man, but such elementary knowledge as enables its
possessor to understand the explanations of the medical attendant has a
double value. Over and over again I have heard the remark when some bold
successful treatment was being discussed, "But you would not have dared
to do that in private practice." The days of medical mystification are
not yet entirely passed, but year by year the profession is assuredly
losing that peculiar virtue of office which it formerly possessed in so
eminent a degree. The doctor is no longer a dignified personage with
gold-headed cane and powdered wig, mounting the mansion steps with
stately tread, but a busy man in various garb, hurrying from house to
house, studying the multitudinous problems of disease, and applying the
fruits of such study to the relief of individual cases. No longer able
to awe his patients into obedience, he must rely upon his moral and
intellectual powers in controlling them. To enable any one to understand
the explanations of physicians, and to protect himself, by discovery,
against the impudent assumptions of quacks, some knowledge of medical
truths and of the drift of modern medical thought is necessary. Every
successful physician, no matter how independent he may be by nature, is
necessarily more or less cramped by the prejudices of patients--prejudices
which often a little primary instruction would have done away with.

Of all the diseased processes fever is one of the most frequent and one
of the most serious in their results. A discussion, therefore, of its
nature, the method of its production and of its relief, will, it may be
hoped, engage the attention of the general reader.

If the hand be laid upon the skin of a person in a high fever the
attention is at once attracted by the great heat, and if the bulb of a
thermometer be placed under the tongue or in the armpit of the patient
the mercury may indicate a temperature of 107 deg., 108 deg., 109 deg.,
or even 110 deg. Fahrenheit, instead of 98 deg. to 99 deg. Fahrenheit,
the normal temperature of the human body. It is a common belief that the
skin in fever is always dry as well as hot, but this is a mistake, as
intense fever may coexist with a reeking perspiration. During the fever
the pulse is greatly increased in frequency, the head aches and throbs,
and if the attack be very severe restlessness, sudden startings,
irregular muscular twitchings, or even violent epileptiform convulsions
and stupor, delirium or coma, indicate the disturbance of the nervous
system.

These various symptoms are simply results of the excess of caloric,
which excites universal irritation, and, if prolonged, destroys the
tissues. This fact I have verified by three series of experiments, by
the first of which it was shown that the general application of external
heat so as to raise the bodily temperature produces all the phenomena of
fever; by the second, that the local application of heat to the brain
and to the heart causes the nervous and circulatory disturbances so
universally seen in fever; and by the third that the abstraction of heat
in fever is followed by immediate subsidence of the other symptoms.

If a small animal, such as a dog, cat or rabbit, be placed in a chamber
heated by means of the sun's rays falling upon a slanting glass roof or
by some artificial method to a temperature of considerably over one
hundred degrees, a very constant series of phenomena is developed. The
breathing becomes hurried and the pulse greatly quickened, whilst the
restless movements of the body indicate nervous distress. After a time,
if the exposure be continued, the symptoms are intensified, and
restlessness passes into the weakness of partial paralysis; then
suddenly or gradually, with or without convulsions, stupor sets in,
deepening into coma, and death from arrested respiration is the final
result. If the temperature of the animal be tested from time to time
during the exposure, it will be found to rise steadily, and the severity
of the symptoms will be directly, and in any one species constantly,
proportional to the intensity of the bodily heat.

The nervous system of man apparently resists the action of heat, but in
reality it does not do so. Man, it is true, is the only animal that can
thrive almost equally amidst arctic snows and in tropical jungles. This
is not, however, because his nervous system lacks sensitiveness, but
because he has the power of heating or cooling his body in such a manner
that its temperature is comparatively unaffected by that of the
surrounding air. Man might be well defined as the naked sweating animal.
In the north he strips the bear and the fox of their coat to keep him
warm; in the south his own skin acts as a refrigerator. The dog has a
few sweat-glands about the mouth--man has two millions densely covering
his body. In the horse exposed to heat the hair soon becomes wet and
matted, interfering very greatly with evaporation; in man the bare skin
offers an excellent surface, from which the perspiration passes off
almost as fast as formed. Evaporation, conversion of a liquid into a
vapor, means a steady conversion of sensible heat into what was
formerly called latent heat, but what we now know to be repulsive force:
the heat-energy of the body is lost in driving the particles of sweat
asunder in the form of vapor.

It is possible, however, to have a temperature which even a Hindoo
cannot resist. When a man is exposed to such a heat his bodily
temperature rises, and as it rises the symptoms of fever develop
precisely as they do in the lower animals--sometimes slowly, sometimes
suddenly--with disturbances of the respiration, circulation and
innervation precisely similar to those already noticed as occurring in
the dog, the cat and the rabbit. Sunstroke, or thermic fever, is
generally believed to be instantaneous in its onset, but the wide
experience of the English in India has shown that whilst in some cases
it is thus sudden in its development, in others it is a slow process,
and probably in almost all cases close observation would have revealed
the existence of premonitions.

External heat, by producing an internal rise of temperature, may thus
cause all the phenomena of fever. Of these phenomena the most prominent
is disturbance of the nervous system and of the circulation. In order to
determine whether the heat itself directly causes the nervous
disturbance, or whether it produces it indirectly by causing changes in
the blood, I applied caloric directly to the brains of animals. This was
done by fitting a hog's bladder like a bonnet over the head and allowing
hot water to run through it. It was found that stupor, coma,
convulsions, and finally death from arrest of the respiration, were
produced, sometimes gradually, sometimes suddenly, precisely as in the
case of exposure of the animal in a hot chamber. Moreover, on opening
the skull and plunging a thermometer into the cerebrum immediately after
death or the supervention of unconsciousness, it was found that these
phenomena were developed at the same brain-temperature when the heat was
locally applied as when the animal was exposed in the hot box. Thus, if
any given species in the hot box became unconscious when the temperature
reached 110 deg. Fahrenheit, this species also became unconscious when the
locally-heated brain attained a temperature of 110 deg.; or if death
occurred by arrest of the respiration in the hot box at 114 deg., so did it
when the locally-heated brain reached that point.

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