her he mistook an intermission for cure, and
retired to his boat; but she made him take her rug with him; and, when he
was gone, she could not sleep for anxiety; and it cut her to the heart to
think how poorly he was lodged compared with her.

Of all the changes fate could bring, this she had never dreamed of, that
she should be so robust and he should be sick and in pain.

She passed an uneasy, restless night, and long before morning she awoke
for the sixth or seventh time, and she awoke with a misgiving in her
mind, and some sound ringing in her ears. She listened and heard nothing;
but in a few moments it began again.

It was Hazel talking--talking in a manner so fast, so strange, so loud,
that it made her blood run cold. It was the voice of Hazel, but not his
mind.

She drew near, and, to her dismay, found him fever-stricken, and pouring
out words with little sequence. She came close to him and tried to soothe
him, but he answered her quite at random, and went on flinging out the
strangest things in stranger order. She trembled and waited for a lull,
hoping then to soothe him with soft words and tones of tender pity.

_"Dens and caves!"_ he roared, answering an imaginary detractor. "Well,
never mind, love shall make that hole in the rock a palace for a queen;
for _a_ queen? For _the_ queen." Here he suddenly changed characters and
fancied he was interpreting the discourse of another. "He means the Queen
of the Fairies," said he, patronizingly. Then, resuming his own character
with loud defiance, "I say her chamber shall outshine the glories of the
Alhambra, as far as the lilies outshone the artificial glories of King
Solomon. Oh, mighty Nature, let others rely on the painter, the
gold-beater, the carver of marble, come you and help me adorn the temple
of my beloved. Amen."

(The poor soul thought, by the sound of his own words, it must be a
prayer he uttered.)

And now Helen, with streaming eyes, tried to put in a word, but he
stopped her with a wild Hush! and went off into a series of mysterious
whisperings. "Make no noise, please, or we shall frighten her.
There--that is her window--no noise, please! I've watched and waited four
hours, just to see her sweet, darling shadow on the blinds, and shall I
lose it for your small talk? all paradoxes and platitudes! excuse my
plain speaking--Hush! here it comes--her shadow--hush!--how my heart
beats. It is gone. So now" (speaking out), "good-night, base world! Do
y