) and the spinster is
fortunately just now busy at some of her household duties.

Reuben fumbles under his pillow nervously for that cherished bit of
paper, (Adele knows already its history,) and when he has found it and
shown it (his thin fingers crumpling it nervously) he says, "Thank you
for this, Adele!"

She answers only by clasping his hand with a sudden mad pressure of
content, while the blood mounted into either cheek with a rosy
exuberance that magnified her beauty tenfold.

He saw it,--he felt it all; and through her beaming eyes, so full of
tenderness and love, saw the world to which he had bidden adieu shining
before him more beguilingly than ever. Yesterday it was a dim and weary
world that he could leave without a pang; to-day it is a brilliant
world, where hopes, promises, joys pile in splendid proportions.

He tells her this. "Yesterday I would have died with scarce a regret;
to-day, Adele, I would live."

"You will, you will, Reuben!" and she grappled more and more
passionately those shrunken fingers. "'T is not hopeless!" (sobbing).

"No, no, Adele, darling, not hopeless. The cloud is lifted,--not
hopeless!"

"Thank God, thank God!" said she, dropping upon her knees beside him,
and with a smile of ecstasy he gathered that fair head to his bosom.

The Doctor, hearing her sobs, came softly in. The son's smile, as he met
his father's inquiring look, was more than ever like the smile of
Rachel. He has been telling the poor girl of her mother's death, thinks
the old gentleman; yet the Doctor wonders that he could have kept so
radiant a face with such a story.

Of these things, however, Reuben goes on presently to speak: of his
first sight of the mother of Adele, and of her devotional attitude as
they floated down past the little chapel of Notre Dame to enter upon the
fateful voyage; he recounts their talks upon the tranquil moon-lit
nights of ocean; he tells of the mother's eager listening to his
description of her child.

"I did not tell her the half, Adele; yet she loved me for what I told
her."

And Adele smiles through her tears.

At last he comes to those dismal scenes of the wreck, relating all with
a strange vividness; living over again, as it were, that fearful
episode, till his brain whirled, his self-possession was lost, and he
broke out into a torrent of delirious raving.

He sleeps brokenly that night, and the next day is feebler than ever.
The physician warns against any causes