their
appearance."

"Alas, sir, my heart begins to fail me!" replied Louise, endeavouring to
suppress her tears. "My poor father! What if the present trial fail!"

"Nay, nay, keep up your courage! I am most sanguine of success in the
scheme I have long meditated for the restoration of your father's
reason. Now, then, all you have to do for the present is carefully to
attend to my directions." So saying, the doctor, quitting his party,
entered a small chamber, whose grated window looked into the garden.

Thanks to rest, care, sufficiency of nourishing diet, Morel was no
longer the pale, careworn, haggard creature that had entered those
walls; the tinge of health began to colour his before jaundiced cheek,
but a melancholy smile, a fixed, motionless gaze, as though on some
object for ever present to his mental view, proved too plainly that
Reason had not entirely resumed her empire over him.

When the doctor entered, Morel was sitting at a table, imitating the
movements of a lapidary at his wheel.

"I must work," murmured he, "and hard, too. Thirteen hundred francs! Ay,
thirteen hundred is the sum required, or poor Louise will be dragged to
a scaffold! That must not be! No, no, her father will work--work--work!
Thirteen hundred francs! Right!"

"Morel, my good fellow," said the doctor, gently advancing towards him,
"don't work so very hard; there is no occasion now, you know that you
have earned the thirteen hundred francs you required to free Louise.
See, here they are!" and with these words the doctor laid a handful of
gold on the table.

"Saved! Louise saved!" exclaimed the lapidary, catching up the money,
and hurrying towards the door; "then I will carry it at once to the
notary."

"Come!" called out the doctor, in considerable trepidation, for well he
knew the success of his experiment depended on the manner in which the
mind of the lapidary received its first shock.

Scarcely had the doctor pronounced the signal than Louise sprang
forwards, and presented herself at the door just as her father reached
it. Bewildered and amazed, Morel let fall the gold he clutched in his
hands, and retreated in visible surprise. For some minutes he continued
gazing on his daughter with a stupefied and vacant stare, but by degrees
his memory seemed to awaken, and, cautiously approaching her, he
examined her features with a timid and restless curiosity.

Poor Louise, trembling with emotion, could scarcely restrain her tears