ping. She flung herself eagerly but tenderly upon them, and devoured
them with kisses. 'Now you will love them, for my sake,' she said; and,
for the first time since discovering that she loved me not, I bestowed
upon them a voluntary paternal caress--I bowed over them and gently
kissed their foreheads. Her love for them had restored them to my heart.

Then again, with her wild, impetuous manner, she led me back to the
other room. I sat upon the sofa and drew her to my breast. She lay
passive a moment, then started up and paced the floor, with rapid
utterances, broken with half sobs and half laughter. She returned to me,
and again repeated this, till finally interrupted with a violent fit of
coughing, occasioned, as I supposed, by excitement.

'Be calm, Evelyn,' I said. 'Come and lie in my arms. This joy is too
great for me to realize. I must feel you on my bosom to convince me that
I am not deceived.'

So she reposed in my arms, and--with broken sobs, the intervals of which
gradually increased, she finally slept. A lethargy also fell upon me,
which endured how long I know not. As I returned to wakefulness, I
shuddered with a cold thrill, such as one might feel on suddenly finding
himself in the presence of a spirit; for I heard what was of more
terrible meaning to me than any other sound. The rest of the precious
sleeper at my side was disturbed frequently by a short, husky cough,
followed by a low moan as of dull pain. Well I knew the prediction
conveyed by those sounds. Long watchings by the bedside of a
slowly-dying mother had made me fearfully familiar with them. Through
the lingering hours of that night I sat listening to them with an
agonized ear, and in my bitterness I almost cursed Heaven for providing
the doom I anticipated.

At the first glimpse of morning I bore her carefully to the side of the
sleeping children, and, after replacing in the casket its contents, sped
to the house of the physician whom I have previously mentioned, and,
leaving word for immediate attendance, hastened back, and resumed my
watch. Oh! in the dawn how pallid and sunken the features which I had so
often seen flushed and full with the animation of life and genius!
Evelyn woke and smiled peacefully on me, but lay as if still exhausted
with weariness. The physician came. He was already aware that my wife
had been engaged in her profession, though ignorant of the objects which
had induced her to it. I informed him of my apprehensions.