aving in the wildest delirium; now shrieking with
fear, now laughing an unnatural, hysterical laugh, and so changed that
no one could have recognized her; the little face so thin, the beautiful
hair of which he had been so proud all gone, the eyes sunken deep in
her head, and their soft light changed to the glare of insanity. Could it
be Elsie, his own beautiful little Elsie? He could scarcely believe it,
and a sickening feeling of horror and remorse crept over him.

No one seemed aware of his entrance, for all eyes were fixed upon the
little sufferer. But as he drew near the bed, with a heart too full for
speech, Elsie's eye fell upon him, and with a wild shriek of mortal
terror, she clung to her aunt, crying out, "Oh, save me! save me! he's
coming to take me away to the Inquisition! Go away! go away!" and she
looked at him with a countenance so full of fear and horror, that the
doctor hastily took him by the arm to lead him away.

But Mr. Dinsmore resisted.

"Elsie! my daughter! it is I! your own father, who loves you dearly!" he
said in tones of the keenest anguish, as he bent over her, and tried to
take her hand. But she snatched it away, and clung to her aunt again,
hiding her face, and shuddering with fear.

Mr. Dinsmore groaned aloud, and no longer resisted the physician's
efforts to lead him from the room. "It is the delirium of _fever_," Dr.
Barton said, in answer to the father's agonized look of inquiry; "she
will recover her reason--if she lives."

The last words were added in a lower, quicker tone.

Mr. Dinsmore covered his face, and uttered a groan of agony.

"Doctor, is there _no_ hope?" he asked in a hoarse whisper.

"Do you wish me to tell you precisely what I think?" asked the physician.

"I do! I do! let me know the worst!" was the quick, passionate rejoinder.

"Then, Mr. Dinsmore, I will be frank with you. Had you returned one week
ago, I think she _might_ have been saved; _possibly_, even had you been
here yesterday morning, while she was still in possession of her reason;
but now, I see not one ray of hope. I never knew one so low to recover."

He started, as Mr. Dinsmore raised his face again, so pale, so haggard,
so grief-stricken had it become in that one moment.

"Doctor," he said in a hollow, broken voice, "save my child, and you may
take all I am worth. I cannot live without her."

"I will do all I can," replied the physician in a tone of deep
compassion, "but the Great Physician