ble--nothing but the soft rustling of a woman's dress. And yet,
I heard in it innumerable harmonies, sweet changes, and pauses minute
beyond all definition. I could only open my eyes for a minute at a time,
and even then, could not fix them steadily on anything; but I knew that
the rustling dress was Clara's; and fresh sensations seemed to throng
upon me, as I listened to the sound which told me that she was in the
room. I felt the soft summer air on my face; I enjoyed the sweet scent
of flowers, wafted on that air; and once, when my door was left open for
a moment, the twittering of birds in the aviary down stairs, rang
with exquisite clearness and sweetness on my ear. It was thus that my
faculties strengthened, hour by hour, always in the same gradual way,
from the time when I first heard the footstep and the whisper outside my
chamber-door.

One evening I awoke from a cool, dreamless sleep; and, seeing Clara
sitting by my bedside, faintly uttered her name, and moved my wasted
hand to take hers. As I saw the calm, familiar face bending over me;
the anxious eyes looking tenderly and lovingly into mine--as the last
melancholy glory of sunset hovered on my bed, and the air, sinking
already into its twilight repose, came softly and more softly into
the room--as my sister took me in her arms, and raising me on my weary
pillow, bade me for her sake lie hushed and patient a little longer--the
memory of the ruin and the shame that had overwhelmed me; the memory of
my love that had become an infamy; and of my brief year's hope miserably
fulfilled by a life of despair, swelled darkly over my heart. The red,
retiring rays of sunset just lingered at that moment on my face. Clara
knelt down by my pillow, and held up her handkerchief to shade my
eyes--"God has given you back to us, Basil," she whispered, "to make us
happier than ever." As she spoke, the springs of the grief so long pent
up within me were loosened; hot tears dropped heavily and quickly from
my eyes; and I wept for the first time since the night of horror which
had stretched me where I now lay--wept in my sister's arms, at that
quiet evening hour, for the lost honour, the lost hope, the lost
happiness that had gone from me for ever in my youth!

II.

Darkly and wearily the days of my recovery went on. After that first
outburst of sorrow on the evening when I recognised my sister, and
murmured her name as she sat by my side, there sank over all my
faculties a dull,