and threatening experiences.

It was the doctor's business to save his patient's life, if he could
possibly do it. Maurice had been reduced to the most perilous state of
debility by the relapse which had interrupted his convalescence. Only by
what seemed almost a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocation
and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It was perfectly
clear to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to whom he
owed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the revolution in his
nervous system which would be the beginning of a new existence, it would
be of far more value as a restorative agency than any or all of the
drugs in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to Euthymia, and explained the
matter to her parents and friends. She must go with him on some of his
visits. Her mother should go with her, or her sister; but this was a
case of life and death, and no maidenly scruples must keep her from
doing her duty.

The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented a
scene not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of the
old edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of the
little group. He went before the others, took his seat by the bedside,
and held the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. As Euthymia
entered it gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant as if with
a faint memory of its old habit, then throbbed full and strong,
comparatively, as if under the spur of some powerful stimulus.
Euthymia's task was a delicate one, but she knew how to disguise its
difficulty.

"Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, and
handed him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and before
she knew it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a gentle
constraint. What could she do? Here was the young man whose life she
had saved, at least for the moment, and who was yet in danger from the
disease which had almost worn out his powers of resistance.

"Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side," said the doctor. "He wants to thank
you, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death which
seemed inevitable."

Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanly
tears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with the
dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear.

The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens--it; it lets
the old water-course f