"The case of Miss Staples puzzles me completely," he said to Doctor Crandall, when he returned to his office one afternoon. "I have never known of symptoms like hers;" and he minutely described the strange turn the case had taken which had baffled him completely.
"As soon as I am able to be about I will go with you and see for myself just where the trouble is."
Meanwhile, a serious matter was agitating the brain of poor Jessie Staples.
She realized before any of the rest did that her condition was becoming alarming, and her wedding-day was drawing nearer and nearer.
But when that day dawned, a secret voice in her heart whispered that she would be "the bride of death," and not Jack Garner's.
She wondered if Heaven meant it for the best, that she must give up the life that might have held so much for her. She had longed for death many a time; but now that it seemed imminent, her very soul grew frightened because of one thought: she would have to leave Jack behind her. It seemed to her that though she should be buried fathoms deep, her soul would cling to earth—and Jack. What if, in time to come, he should forget her! Ah! that was the bitterest stroke of all; and she realized that, no matter how deeply a person may love, when the object of that affection dies, time brings balm to his woe, and mellows it into forgetfulness or to a shadowy memory.
If she were to die, would he ever love another, and stand with that other before the altar?
In her day-dreams, in times gone by, Jessie had pictured to herself—as girls will in those rosy moments—how she would stand at the altar, and listen with whirling brain and beating heart to those sweet, solemn words that would bind her forever to the man she loved with more than a passing love. She pictured how she would walk down the aisle, leaning on his arm—that great, strong arm that would be her support for evermore—a great mist of happy tears in her eyes as she clung to him.
She even pictured to herself how he would help her into the coach, and how they would drive away out into the great wide world together, to be separated never again.
Instead of all this, now she would be lying in her grave, with blue forget-me-nots and pale primroses on her breast.