groves, the great kingfisher opening the
jocund melodious babble with the glee of his social laugh.

And now I heard Faber's step in Lilian's room,--heard through the door
her soft voice, though I could not distinguish the words. It was not
long before I saw the kind physician standing at the threshold of my
chamber. He pressed his finger to his lip, and made me a sign to follow
him. I obeyed, with noiseless tread and stifled breathing. He awaited me
in the garden under the flowering acacias, passed his arm in mine, and
drew me into the open pasture-land.

"Compose yourself," he then said; "I bring you tidings both of gladness
and of fear. Your Lilian's mind is restored: even the memories which
had been swept away by the fever that followed her return to her home in
L---- are returning, though as yet indistinct. She yearns to see you, to
bless you for all your noble devotion, your generous, greathearted love;
but I forbid such interview now. If, in a few hours, she become either
decidedly stronger or decidedly more enfeebled, you shall be summoned
to her side. Even if you are condemned to a loss for which the sole
consolation must be placed in the life hereafter, you shall have, at
least, the last mortal commune of soul with soul. Courage! courage!
You are man! Bear as man what you have so often bid other men submit to
endure."

I had flung myself on the ground,--writhing worm that had no home but
on earth! Man, indeed! Man! All, at that moment, I took from manhood was
its acute sensibility to love and to anguish!

But after all such paroxysms of mortal pain, there comes a strange
lull. Thought itself halts, like the still hush of water between two
descending torrents. I rose in a calm, which Faber might well mistake
for fortitude.

"Well," I said quietly, "fulfil your promise. If Lilian is to pass away
from me, I shall see her, at least, again; no wall, you tell me, between
our minds; mind to mind once more,--once more!"

"Allen," said Faber, mournfully and softly, "why do you shun to repeat
my words--soul to soul?"

"Ay, ay,--I understand. Those words mean that you have resigned all hope
that Lilian's life will linger here, when her mind comes back in full
consciousness; I know well that last lightning flash and the darkness
which swallows it up!"

"You exaggerate my fears. I have not resigned the hope that Lilian will
survive the struggle through which she is passing, but it will be cruel
to deceive you--m