, until she blushed to see that she
was continuing her charitable office for one who was beginning to look
too well to be called an invalid. It was a dangerous condition of
affairs, and the busy tongues of the village gossips were free in their
comments. Free, but kindly, for the story of the rescue had melted every
heart; and what could be more natural than that these two young people
whom God had brought together in the dread moment of peril should find it
hard to tear themselves asunder after the hour of danger was past? When
gratitude is a bankrupt, love only can pay his debts; and if Maurice gave
his heart to Euthymia, would not she receive it as payment in full?

The change which had taken place in the vital currents of Maurice
Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in a
magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the austral
the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took place while he
was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. For all the
long-defeated, disturbed, perverted instincts had found their natural
channel from the centre of consciousness to the organ which throbs in
response to every profound emotion. As his health gradually returned,
Euthymia could not help perceiving a flush in his cheek, a glitter in his
eyes, a something in the tone of his voice, which altogether were a
warning to the young maiden that the highway of friendly intercourse was
fast narrowing to a lane, at the head of which her woman's eye could read
plainly enough, "Dangerous passing."

"You look so much better to-day, Mr. Kirkwood," she said, "that I think I
had better not play Sister of Charity any longer. The next time we meet
I hope you will be strong enough to call on me."

She was frightened to see how pale he turned,--he was weaker than she
thought. There was a silence so profound and so long that Mrs. Butts
looked up from the stocking she was knitting. They had forgotten the
good woman's presence.

Presently Maurice spoke,--very faintly, but Mrs. Butts dropped a stitch
at the first word, and her knitting fell into her lap as she listened to
what followed.

"No! you must not leave me. You must never leave me. You saved my life.
But you have done more than that,--more than you know or can ever know.
To you I owe it that I am living; with you I live henceforth, if I am to
live at all. All I am, all I hope,--will you take this poor offering
from one who owes you e