g hand, as if to say 'Courage!' and then was down
again snuffing the body. Yes, it was a body ... Anthony's body. There was
the white hand with its diamond-ring clutching the dark leaves. His eyes
were half open, but did not heed the gleam of sunlight that darted itself
directly on them from between the boughs.

Still he might only have fainted; it might only be a fit. Sir Christopher
knelt down, unfastened the cravat, unfastened the waistcoat, and laid his
hand on the heart. It might be syncope; it might not--it could not be
death. No! that thought must be kept far off.

'Go, Bates, get help; we'll carry him to your cottage. Send some one to
the house to tell Mr. Gilfil and Warren. Bid them send off for Doctor
Hart, and break it to my lady and Miss Assher that Anthony is ill.'

Mr. Bates hastened away, and the Baronet was left alone kneeling beside
the body. The young and supple limbs, the rounded cheeks, the delicate
ripe lips, the smooth white hands, were lying cold and rigid; and the
aged face was bending over them in silent anguish; the aged deep-veined
hands were seeking with tremulous inquiring touches for some symptom that
life was not irrevocably gone.

Rupert was there too, waiting and watching; licking first the dead and
then the living hands; then running off on Mr. Bates's track as if he
would follow and hasten his return, but in a moment turning back again,
unable to quit the scene of his master's sorrow.

Chapter 15

It is a wonderful moment, the first time we stand by one who has fainted,
and witness the fresh birth of consciousness spreading itself over the
blank features, like the rising sunlight on the alpine summits that lay
ghastly and dead under the leaden twilight. A slight shudder, and the
frost-bound eyes recover their liquid light; for an instant they show the
inward semi-consciousness of an infant's; then, with a little start, they
open wider and begin to look; the present is visible, but only as a
strange writing, and the interpreter Memory is not yet there.

Mr. Gilfil felt a trembling joy as this change passed over Caterina's
face. He bent over her, rubbing her chill hands, and looking at her with
tender pity as her dark eyes opened on him wonderingly. He thought there
might be some wine in the dining-room close by. He left the room, and
Caterina's eyes turned towards the window--towards Sir Christopher's
chair. There was the link at which the chain of consciousness had
snapp