cksmith's, and white as a duchess's.

The young doctor eyed the magnificent limb a moment with rapture; then
fixed his apparatus and performed an operation which then, as now, was
impossible in theory; only he did it. He sent some of Griffith Gaunt's
bright red blood smoking hot into Kate Gaunt's veins.

This done, he watched his patient closely, and administered stimulants
from time to time.

She hung between life and death for hours. But at noon next day she
spoke, and, seeing Griffith sitting beside her, pale with anxiety and
loss of blood, she said: "My dear, do not thou fret. I died last night.
I knew I should. But they gave me another life; and now I shall live to
a hundred."

They showed her the little boy; and, at sight of him, the whole woman
made up her mind to live.

And live she did. And, what is very remarkable, her convalescence was
more rapid than on any former occasion.

It was from a talkative nurse she first learned that Griffith had given
his blood for her. She said nothing at the time, but lay, with an
angelic, happy smile, thinking of it.

The first time she saw him after that, she laid her hand on his arm,
and, looking Heaven itself into his eyes, she said, "My life is very
dear to me now. 'T is a present from thee."

She only wanted a good excuse for loving him as frankly as before, and
now he had given her one. She used to throw it in his teeth in the
prettiest way. Whenever she confessed a fault, she was sure to turn
slyly round and say, "But what could one expect of me? I have his blood
in my veins."

But once she told Father Francis, quite seriously, that she had never
been quite the same woman since she lived by Griffith's blood; she was
turned jealous; and moreover it had given him a fascinating power over
her, and she could tell blindfold when he was in the room. Which last
fact, indeed, she once proved by actual experiment. But all this I leave
to such as study the occult sciences in this profound age of ours.

Starting with this advantage, Time, the great curer, gradually healed a
wound that looked incurable.

Mrs. Gaunt became a better wife than she had ever been before. She
studied her husband, and found he was not hard to please. She made his
home bright and genial; and so he never went abroad for the sunshine he
could have at home.

And he studied her. He added a chapel to the house, and easily persuaded
Francis to become the chaplain. Thus they had a peacemaker, and a