conjectures. No
one should know of Ishmael's misfortune, for she would not call it
fault, if any vigilance of hers could shield him. All through the still
evening, all through the deep midnight, Bee sat and watched.

When Ishmael had fallen asleep, the sun was still high above the Western
horizon; but when he awoke the stars were shining.

He raised himself to a sitting posture, and looked around him, utterly
bewildered and unable to collect his scattered faculties, or to remember
where he was, or how he came there, or what had occurred, or who he
himself really was--so deathlike had been his sleep.

He had no headache; his previous habits had been too regular, his
blood was too pure, and the brandy was too good for that. He was simply
bewildered, but utterly bewildered, as though he had waked up in another
world.

He was conscious of a weight upon his heart, but could not remember the
cause of it; and whether it was grief or remorse, or both, he could not
tell. He feared that it was both.

Gradually memory and misery returned to him; the dreadful day; the
marriage; the feast; the parting; the lawsuit; the two glasses of
brandy, and their mortifying consequences. All the events of that day
lay clearly before him now--that horrible day begun in unutterable
sorrow, and ended in humiliating sin!

Was it himself, Ishmael Worth, who had suffered this sorrow, yielded to
this temptation, and fallen into this sin? To what had his inordinate
earthly affections brought him? He was no longer "the chevalier without
fear and without reproach." He had fallen, fallen, fallen!

He remembered that when he had sunk to sleep the sun was shining and
smiling all over the beautiful garden, and that even in his half-drowsy
state he had noticed its glory. The sun was gone now. It had set upon
his humiliating weakness. The day had given up the record of his sin and
passed away forever. The day would return no more to reproach him, but
its record would meet him in the judgment.

He remembered that once in his deep sleep he had half awakened and found
what seemed a weeping angel bending over him, and that he had tried to
rouse himself to speak; but in the effort he had only turned over and
tumbled into a deeper oblivion than ever.

Who was that pitying angel visitant?

The answer came like a shock of electricity. It was Bee! Who else should
it have been? It was Bee! She had sought him out when he was lost; she
had found him in his we