rds Margaret; and, in an instant, all previous
thoughts were suspended in my mind, by the sight that now met my eyes.

She had altered completely. Her hands, so restless hitherto, lay quite
still over the coverlid; her lips never moved; the whole expression of
her face had changed--the fever-traces remained on every feature, and
yet the fever-look was gone. Her eyes were almost closed; her quick
breathing had grown calm and slow. I touched her pulse; it was beating
with a wayward, fluttering gentleness. What did this striking alteration
indicate? Recovery? Was it possible? As the idea crossed my mind, every
one of my faculties became absorbed in the sole occupation of watching
her face; I could not have stirred an instant from the bed, for worlds.

The earliest dawn of day was glimmering faintly at the window, before
another change appeared--before she drew a long, sighing breath, and
slowly opened her eyes on mine. Their first look was very strange and
startling to behold; for it was the look that was natural to her; the
calm look of consciousness, restored to what it had always been in
the past time. It lasted only for a moment. She recognised me; and,
instantly, an expression of anguish and shame flew over the first terror
and surprise of her face. She struggled vainly to lift her hands--so
busy all through the night; so idle now! A faint moan of supplication
breathed from her lips; and she slowly turned her head on the pillow, so
as to hide her face from my sight.

"Oh, my God! my God!" she murmured, in low, wailing tones, "I've broken
his heart, and he still comes here to be kind to me! This is worse than
death! I'm too bad to be forgiven--leave me! leave me!--oh, Basil, leave
me to die!"

I spoke to her; but desisted almost immediately--desisted even from
uttering her name. At the mere sound of my voice, her suffering rose to
agony; the wild despair of the soul wrestling awfully with the writhing
weakness of the body, uttered itself in words and cries horrible, beyond
all imagination, to hear. I sank down on my knees by the bedside; the
strength which had sustained me for hours, gave way in an instant, and
I burst into a passion of tears, as my spirit poured from my lips in
supplication for hers--tears that did not humiliate me; for I knew,
while I shed them, that I had forgiven her!

The dawn brightened. Gradually, as the fair light of the new day flowed
in lovely upon her bed; as the fresh morning breeze lif