ve.

It was the touch of something cold upon his cheek that roused the
sleeper, and that something cold was the dog's nose.

Dyke did not start; he merely opened his eyes quietly, and looked up at
those gazing at him, and, thoroughly comforted and rested, he smiled in
the dog's face.

"Get out, you old rascal," he said. "You know you've no business to do
that."

Duke uttered a satisfied bark, and then began to caper about the room to
show his delight at the solemn silence of the place being broken; but
stopped directly, and made for the door in alarm, so sudden was the
spring his master made to his feet--so wild and angry the cry the boy
uttered as he bent over the bed.

For full consciousness had returned like a flash, and as he cried, "I've
been asleep! I've been asleep!" he gazed down at his brother, horrified
at the thought of what might have happened, and full of self-reproach
for what he felt to have been his cruel neglect.

But Emson was just as he had seen him last--even his hands were exactly
as they had lain in the darkness the previous night--and when Dyke
placed his hand upon the poor fellow's head, it felt fairly cool and
moist.

Dyke's spirits rose a little at this, but his self-reproach was as great
as ever.

"Oh!" he muttered angrily, "and I pretend to care for him, and promise
him that I will not leave him, and go right off to sleep like that.
Why, he might have died, and I never have moved.--Here, Duke!"

The dog sprang to him with a bound, raised himself, and placed his paws
upon his master's breast, threw back his head, opened his wide jaws,
lolled out his tongue, and panted as if after a long run.

"Here, look at me, old chap, and see what a lazy, thoughtless brute I
am."

But Duke only shook his head from side to side, and uttered a low whine,
followed by a bark.

"There: down! Oh, how could I sleep like that?"

But by degrees it was forced upon him that Emson had evidently passed a
perfectly calm night, and looked certainly better, and he knew that it
was utterly impossible to live without rest.

He awoke, too, now to the fact that he was ravenously hungry, while the
way in which the dog smelt about the place, snuffing at the tin in which
his master's last mess of bread and milk had been served, and then ran
whining to lap at the water at the bottom of a bucket, spoke plainly
enough of the fact that he was suffering from the same complaint.

At the same time, Dyke was trying