but, of course, in vain.
Then with the restlessness common to intense anxiety she came down and
went into the shrubbery to walk. She paced about very uneasily until she
had tired herself, and then turned towards a secluded arbor at the
bottom of the grounds to rest herself. She put aside the vines that
overhung the doorway and entered.

What did she see?

Ishmael extended upon the bench, with the late afternoon sun streaming
through a crevice in the arbor, shining full upon his face, which was
also plagued with flies!

She had found him then, but how?

At first she thought he was only sleeping; and she was about to withdraw
from the arbor when the sound of his breathing caught her ear and
alarmed her, and she crept back and cautiously approached and looked
over him.

His face was deeply flushed; the veins of his temples were swollen; and
his breathing was heavy and labored. In her fright Bee caught up his
hand and felt his pulse. It was full, hard, and slowly throbbing. She
thought that he was very ill--dangerously ill, and she was about to
spring up and rush to the house for help, when, in raising her head,
she happened to catch his breath.

And all the dreadful truth burst upon Bee's mind, and overwhelmed her
with mortification and despair!

With a sudden gasp and a low wail she sank on her knees at his side and
dropped her head in her open hands and sobbed aloud.

"Oh, Ishmael, Ishmael, is it so? Have I lived to see you thus? Can a
woman reduce a man to this? A proud and selfish woman have such power so
to mar God's noblest work? Oh, Ishmael, my love, my love! I love you
better than I love all the world besides! And I love you better than
anyone else ever did or ever can; yet, yet, I would rather see you stark
dead before me than to see you thus! Oh, Heaven! Oh, Saviour! Oh, Father
of Mercies, have pity on him and save him!" she cried.

And she wrung her hands and bent her head to look at him more closely,
and her large tears dropped upon his face.

He stirred, opened his eyes, rolled them heavily, became half conscious
of someone weeping over him, turned clumsily and relapsed into
insensibility.

At his first motion Bee had sprung up and fled from the arbor, at the
door of which she stood, with throbbing heart, watching him, through the
vines. She saw that he had again fallen into that deep and comatose
sleep. And she saw that his flushed and fevered face was more than ever
exposed to the rays of the