most a miracle had he survived the exposure to suffocation
and the mental anguish through which he had passed. It was perfectly
clear to Dr. Butts that if Maurice could see the young woman to whom he
owed his life, and, as the doctor felt assured, the revolution in his
nervous system which would be the beginning of a new existence, it would
be of far more value as a restorative agency than any or all of the drugs
in the pharmacopoeia. He told this to Euthymia, and explained the matter
to her parents and friends. She must go with him on some of his visits.
Her mother should go with her, or her sister; but this was a case of life
and death, and no maidenly scruples must keep her from doing her duty.

The first of her visits to the sick, perhaps dying, man presented a scene
not unlike the picture before spoken of on the title-page of the old
edition of Galen. The doctor was perhaps the most agitated of the little
group. He went before the others, took his seat by the bedside, and held
the patient's wrist with his finger on the pulse. As Euthymia entered it
gave a single bound, fluttered for an instant as if with a faint memory
of its old habit, then throbbed full and strong, comparatively, as if
under the spur of some powerful stimulus. Euthymia's task was a delicate
one, but she knew how to disguise its difficulty.

"Here is a flower I have brought you, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, and handed
him a white chrysanthemum. He took it from her hand, and before she knew
it he took her hand into his own, and held it with a gentle constraint.
What could she do? Here was the young man whose life she had saved, at
least for the moment, and who was yet in danger from the disease which
had almost worn out his powers of resistance.

"Sit down by Mr. Kirkwood's side," said the doctor. "He wants to thank
you, if he has strength to do it, for saving him from the death which
seemed inevitable."

Not many words could Maurice command. He was weak enough for womanly
tears, but their fountains no longer flowed; it was with him as with the
dying, whose eyes may light up, but rarely shed a tear.

The river which has found a new channel widens and deepens--it; it lets
the old water-course fill up, and never returns to its forsaken bed. The
tyrannous habit was broken. The prophecy of the gitana had verified
itself, and the ill a fair woman had wrought a fairer woman bad conquered
and abolished.

The history of Maurice Kirkwood loses its exceptio