ion of all throbbings, and the unutterable pains that had so long
possessed my brain, that I was now returning from the gates of death, a sad
confusion assailed me as to some indefinite cloud of evil that had been
hovering over me at the time when I first fell into a state of
insensibility. For a time I struggled vainly to recover the lost connection
of my thoughts, and I endeavoured ineffectually to address myself to sleep.
I opened my eyes, but found the glare of light painful beyond measure.
Strength, however, it seemed to me that I had, and more than enough, to
raise myself out of bed. I made the attempt, but fell back, almost giddy
with the effort. At the sound of the disturbance which I had thus made, a
woman whom I did not know came from behind a curtain, and spoke to me.
Shrinking from any communication with a stranger, especially one whose
discretion I could not estimate in making discoveries to me with the
requisite caution, I asked her simply what o'clock it was.

'Eleven in the forenoon,' she replied.

'And what day of the month?'

'The second,' was her brief answer.

I felt almost a sense of shame in adding--'The second! but of what month?'

'Of June,' was the startling rejoinder.

On the 8th of April I had fallen ill, and it was now actually the 2nd of
June. Oh! sickening calculation! revolting register of hours! for in that
same moment which brought back this one recollection, perhaps by steadying
my brain, rushed back in a torrent all the other dreadful remembrances of
the period, and now the more so, because, though the event was still
uncertain as regarded my knowledge, it must have become dreadfully certain
as regarded the facts of the case, and the happiness of all who were
concerned. Alas! one little circumstance too painfully assured me that this
event had not been a happy one. Had Agnes been restored to her liberty and
her home, where would she have been found but watching at my bedside? That
too certainly I knew, and the inference was too bitter to support.

* * * * *

On this same day, some hours afterwards, upon Hannah's return from the city,
I received from her, and heard with perfect calmness, the whole sum of evil
which awaited me. Little Francis--she took up her tale at that point--'was
with God:' so she expressed herself. He had died of the same fever which had
attacked me--had died and been buried nearly five weeks before. Too probably
he had caught t