stracted voice, as if
trying to recollect.

"Lucia Vavasour!--your Lucia!"

Elsley slowly raised himself upon his elbow, and looked into her face
with a sad inquiring gaze.

"Elsley--darling Elsley!--don't you know me?"

"Yes, very well indeed; better than you know me. I am not Vavasour at
all. My name is Briggs--John Briggs, the apothecary's son, come home to
Whitbury to die."

She did not hear, or did not care for those last words.

"Elsley! I am your wife!--your own wife!--who never loved any one but
you--never, never, never!"

"Yes, my wife, at least!--Curse them, that they cannot deny!" said he,
in the same abstracted voice.

"Oh God! is he mad?" thought she. "Elsley, speak to me!--I am your
Lucia--your love--"

And she tore off her bonnet, and threw herself beside him on the bed,
and clasped him in her arms, murmuring,--"Your wife! who never loved any
one but you!"

Slowly his frozen heart and frozen brain melted beneath the warmth of
her great love: but he did not speak: only he passed his weak arm round
her neck; and she felt that his cheek was wet with tears, while she
murmured on, like a cooing dove, the same sweet words again--

"Call me your love once more, and I shall know that all is past."

"Then call me no more Elsley, love!" whispered he. "Call me John Briggs,
and let us have done with shams for ever."

"No; you are my Elsley--my Vavasour! and I am your wife once more!" and
the poor thing fondled his head as it lay upon the pillow. "My own
Elsley, to whom I gave myself, body and soul; for whom I would die now,
--oh, such a death!--any death!"

"How could I doubt you?--fool that I was!"

"No, it was all my fault. It was all my odious temper! But we will be
happy now, will we not?"

Elsley smiled sadly, and began babbling--Yes, they would take a farm,
and he would plough, and sow, and be of some use before he died; "But
promise me one thing!" cried he, with sudden strength.

"What?"

"That you will go home and burn all the poetry--all the manuscripts,
and never let the children write a verse--a verse--when I am dead?" And
his head sank back, and his jaw dropped.

"He is dead!" cried the poor impulsive creature, with a shriek which
brought in Tom and Valencia.

"He is not dead, madam: but you must be very gentle with him, if we are
to--"

Tom saw that there was little hope.

"I will do anything,--only save him!--save him! Mr. Thurnall, till I
have atoned for all."

"You hav