face,--and presently a wan smile
crossed his lips.

"Yes!--so you did!" he answered--"I know you now, Mary! I've been ill,
haven't I?"

She nodded at him--the tears were still wet on her lashes.

"Very ill!"

"Ill all night, I suppose?"

She nodded again.

"It's morning now?"

"Yes, it's morning!"

"I shall get up presently,"--he said, in his old gentle courteous
way--"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden
your hospitality--your kindness----"

His voice trailed away into silence,--his eyelids drooped--and fell into
a sound slumber,--the first refreshing sleep he had enjoyed for many
weary nights and days.

Mary Deane stood looking at him thoughtfully. The turn had come for the
better, and she silently thanked God. Night after night, day after day,
she had nursed him with unwearying patience and devotion, having no
other help or guidance save her own womanly instinct, and the occasional
advice of the village doctor, who, however, was not a qualified medical
man, but merely a herbalist who prepared his own simples. This humble
Gamaliel diagnosed Helmsley's case as one of rheumatic fever,
complicated by heart trouble, as well as by the natural weakness of
decaying vitality. Mary had explained to him Helmsley's presence in her
cottage by a pious falsehood, which Heaven surely forgave her as soon as
it was uttered. She had said that he was a friend of her late father's,
who had sought her out in the hope that she might help him to find some
light employment in his old age, and that not knowing the country at
all, he had lost his way across the hills during the blinding fury of
the storm. This story quickly ran through the little village, of which
Mary's house was the last, at the summit of the "coombe," and many of
its inhabitants came to inquire after "Mr. David," while he lay tossing
and moaning between life and death, most of them seriously commiserating
Mary herself for the "sight o' trouble" she had been put to,--"all for a
trampin' stranger like!"

"Though,"--observed one rustic sage--"Bein' a lone woman as y' are, Mis'
Deane, m'appen if he knew yer father 'twould be pleasant to talk to him
when 'is 'ed comes clear, if clear it iver do come. For when we've put
our owd folk under the daisies, it do cheer the 'art a bit to talk of
'em to those as knew 'em when they was a standin' upright, bold an'
strong, for all they lays so low till last trumpet."

Mary smiled a grave assent,