s, when I revived, came to me by
way of my ears. Leaden weights seemed to close my eyes, to fetter my
movements, to silence my tongue, to paralyze my touch. But I heard a
wailing voice, speaking close to me, so close that it might have been my
own voice: I distinguished the words; I knew the tones.

"Oh, my master, my lord, who am I that I should live--and you die! and
you die!"

Was it her warm young breath that quickened me with its vigorous life? I
only know that the revival of my sense of touch did certainly spring from
the contact of her lips, pressed to mine in the reckless abandonment of
grief without hope. Her cry of joy, when my first sigh told her that I
was still a living creature, ran through me like an electric shock. I
opened my eyes; I held out my hand; I tried to help her when she raised
my head, and set me against the tree under which I had been stretched
helpless. With an effort I could call her by her name. Even that
exhausted me. My mind was so weak that I should have believed her, if she
had declared herself to be a spirit seen in a dream, keeping watch over
me in the wood.

Wiser than I was, she snatched up my hat, ran on before me, and was lost
in the darkness.

An interval, an unendurable interval, passed. She returned, having filled
my hat from the spring. But for the exquisite coolness of the water
falling on my face, trickling down my throat, I should have lost my
senses again. In a few minutes more, I could take that dear hand, and
hold it to me as if I was holding to my life. We could only see each
other obscurely, and in that very circumstance (as we confessed to each
other afterwards) we found the needful composure before we could speak.

"Cristel! what does it mean?"

"Poison," she answered. "And _he_ has suffered too."

To my astonishment, there was no anger in her tone: she spoke of him as
quietly as if she had been alluding to an innocent man.

"Do you mean that he has been at death's door, like me?"

"Yes, thank God--or I should never have found you here. Poor old Gloody
came to us, in search of help. 'My master's in a swoon, and I can't bring
him to.' Directly I heard that, I remembered that you had drunk what he
had drunk. What had happened to him, must have happened to you. Don't ask
me how long it was before I found you, and what I felt when I did find
you. I do so want to enjoy my happiness! Only let me see you safely home,
and I ask no more."

She helped me to rise,