old man, still bending forward, intently
watching for the sign he had asked her to make. My anger and disgust
at his gross earthy egoism had vanished. "Let us thank God, old man,"
I said, the tears of joy half choking my utterance. "She lives--she is
recovering from her fit."

He drew back, and on his knees, with bowed head, murmured a prayer of
thanks to Heaven.

Together we continued watching her face for half an hour longer, I
still holding her in my arms, which could never grow weary of that sweet
burden, waiting for other, surer signs of returning life; and she seemed
now like one that had fallen into a profound, death-like sleep which
must end in death. Yet when I remembered her face as it had looked an
hour ago, I was confirmed in the belief that the progress to recovery,
so strangely slow, was yet sure. So slow, so gradual was this passing
from death to life that we had hardly ceased to fear when we noticed
that the lips were parted, or almost parted, that they were no longer
white, and that under her pale, transparent skin a faint, bluish-rosy
colour was now visible. And at length, seeing that all danger was past
and recovery so slow, old Nuflo withdrew once more to the fireside and,
stretching himself out on the sandy floor, soon fell into a deep sleep.

If he had not been lying there before me in the strong light of the
glowing embers and dancing flames, I could not have felt more alone with
Rima--alone amid those remote mountains, in that secret cavern, with
lights and shadows dancing on its grey vault. In that profound silence
and solitude the mysterious loveliness of the still face I continued
to gaze on, its appearance of life without consciousness, produced a
strange feeling in me, hard, perhaps impossible, to describe.

Once, when clambering among the rough rocks, overgrown with forest,
among the Queneveta mountains, I came on a single white flower which was
new to me, which I have never seen since. After I had looked long at it,
and passed on, the image of that perfect flower remained so persistently
in my mind that on the following day I went again, in the hope of seeing
it still untouched by decay. There was no change; and on this occasion
I spent a much longer time looking at it, admiring the marvellous
beauty of its form, which seemed so greatly to exceed that of all
other flowers. It had thick petals, and at first gave me the idea of an
artificial flower, cut by a divinely inspired artist from