tly on the hand which she pressed to her lips.

CHAPTER XXIV.

SAFE HAVEN

"The human heart finds shelter nowhere but in human kind."

--George Eliot.

For many days Pepeeta's life hung in the balance, her spirit hovering
uncertainly along the border land of being, and it was only love that
wooed it back to life.

When at length, through careful nursing, she really regained her
consciousness and came up from those unfathomable abysses where she had
been wandering, she opened her eyes upon the walls of a little chamber
that looked out through an alcove into the living room of the Quaker
house.

Dorothea had finished her afternoon's work and was seated before the
great fireplace, while by her side stood Steven, speaking to her in
whispers, and looking often toward the cot on which Pepeeta lay. An
almost sacred stillness was in the room, for since the advent of the
sufferer, even the quiet of that well-ordered household had deepened and
softened.

The silence was suddenly broken by a voice feeble and tremulous, but
very musical and sweet. It was Pepeeta, who gazed around her in
bewilderment and asked in vague alarm, "Where am I?"

Dorothea was by her side in an instant, and taking the thin fingers in
her strong hands, replied: "Thee is among friends."

Pepeeta looked long into the calm face above her, and gathered
reassurance; but her memory did not at once return.

"Have I ever been in this place before? Have I ever seen your face? Has
something dreadful happened? Tell me," she entreated, gazing with
agitation into the calm eyes that looked down into hers.

"I cannot tell thee whether thee has ever seen us before, but we have
seen thee so much for a few days that we feel like old friends," said
Dorothea, pressing the hand she held, and smiling.

Pepeeta's eyes wandered about the room restlessly for a moment, and then
some dim remembrance of the past came back.

"Did I come here in a great storm?" she asked.

"Thee did, indeed. The night was wild and cold."

"Did I fall on the threshold?"

"Upon the very threshold, and let us thank God for that, because if thee
had fallen at the gate or in the path we should never have heard thee."

Pepeeta struggled to a sitting posture as her memory clarified, fixed
her wide open eyes upon Dorothea and asked, pathetically, "Where is he?"

"I do not know who thee means," said Dorothea, laying her hand on the
invalid's shoulders and trying gently t