d man had been down to Ti inquiring for him, having
heard nothing of him for some days. He was pulling out, on his
way home, from under the rocks below the fort, and saw the two men
standing out in the angle of the wall high up. He saw the awful leap
and plunge, rowed round and fished out the limp shape of a young man
he had never seen, worked the water out of him, rowed him home and
carried him and laid him in bed. He left him there, breathing but
unconscious, and went for Dr. Niedever of Rawdon. He must have struck
his head in some way: there was a cut on his forehead, but no other
serious injury that could be seen. If he had struck sidewise, it would
not have mattered much whether it was water or rock that he struck;
but his leap had carried him beyond the debris at the cliff's foot,
and, coming down perfectly straight as he did, ten feet deeper water
would have let him off little the worse. As it was, he was unconscious
for some time. When he came to himself he was extremely weak and
hungry, and perfectly contented to let them do with him as they
pleased. The doctor's daily visits, the movements of the queer old
couple as they came in and out, fed him and gave his draughts, the
homely old place and the placid expanse of the lake which he saw by
turning his head, were as much and no more to him than his own body
lying there day after day. They were parts of a pantomime, of which he
was actor and spectator, but in which he had no special interest, and
which he was perfectly happy to go to sleep and leave. Gradually his
brain cleared, and slowly he got back the thread of recollection where
it had broken so sharply, and began to spin again; and among the first
clear new ideas that took shape out of his scattered wits was one,
that the queer old couple had been exceedingly good to him, and that
they had no special reason for kindness in his case; and, second,
that this gruff, ruddy, Indian-haired doctor was a man of skill and
decision, and one not too fond of Mr. Daniel Field.

The second Sunday afternoon Field was lying quietly looking out on the
lake from the bed, and thinking in a mood uncommonly serious for
him, not very complacent nor very proud. Some feelings that had been
stronger than he cared to resist these last few weeks had grown vague
and intermittent--some new ones had come into their place.

Dr. Niedever came in and looked at him, giving him no greeting and
treating him brusquely enough. He took a turn ab