"Rather often; but this"—with a little tinge of color in her pale cheeks—"this is just a common kind of faintness—it is not like the other."
"I know; but I do not like you to turn faint in this way. May I ask you a few questions about yourself?"
"Oh, yes—I know that you are quite a doctor!" said Enid, smiling at him with perfect confidence.
So the Rector put his questions—and very strange questions some of them were, thought Enid, though he was wonderfully correct in guessing what she felt. Yes, she was nearly always faint and sick; she had a strange burning sensation sometimes in her chest; she had violent palpitations, and odd feelings of a terrible fright and depression. But the doctor had assured her that she had not the faintest trace of organic disease of the heart; and that these functional disturbances would speedily pass away. Mr. Ingledew had sounded her and told her that she need not be alarmed—and of course he was a very clever man.
"Enid," said the Rector at last, after a long pause, and rather as if he was trying to make a sort of joke which, after all, was not amusing, "I am going to ask you what you will think a very foolish question. Have you an enemy in the house—here, at Beechfield Hall?"
Enid's eyes dilated with a look of terror.
"Why—why do you ask?"
"It is a ridiculous question, is it not? But I thought that perhaps somebody had been playing on your nerves, and wanting to frighten you about yourself. Is there anybody who might possibly do so?"
Her lips parted twice before any articulate word issued from them. At last he caught the answer—
"Only Flossy."