nd dawning hope.

Lenore was forgetting everything in this watching, but in another
quarter of an hour Anne was forced again to torture him with her
spoon; but life was evidently gaining ground, for though he put it
from him at first, he submitted at Lena's gesture and word. She
felt the increased warmth and power in his grasp, as he whispered,
"Lena, you are come back," then felt for the token.

Alas! that she must leave him. They knew she must not stay away
from her father; indeed, Rosamond had told no one of her attempt,
her forlorn hope. Lena tried to give assurances that she only went
because it could not be helped, and the others told him she would
return, but still he held her, and murmured, "Stay." She could not
tear herself away, she let him keep her hand, and again he dozed and
his fingers relaxed. "Go now, my dear," said Mrs. Poynsett, "you
have saved him. This stone will show him that you have been here.
You will come back to-morrow, I may promise him?"

"Yes, yes. In the morning, or whenever I can be spared," whispered
Lena, who was held for a moment to Mrs. Poynsett's breast, ere
Rosamond took her away again, and brought her once more down-stairs
and to the pony-carriage. There she leant back, weeping quietly but
bitterly over the shock of Frank's terribly reduced state, which
seemed to take from her all the joy of his revival, weeping too at
the cruel need that was taking her away.

"He will do now! I know he will," said Rosamond, happy in her bold
venture.

"Oh! if I could stay!"

"Most likely you would be turned out for fear of excitement. The
stone will be safer for him."

"Where did that come from?" asked Lenore, struck suddenly with
wonder.

"I wrote to Miss Strangeways, when I saw how he was always feeling,
feeling, feeling for it, like the Bride of Lammermoor. I told her
there was more than she knew connected with that bit of stone, and
life or death might hang on it. Then when I'd got it, I hardly knew
what to do with it, for if it had soothed the poor boy delirious,
the coming to his right mind might have been all the worse."

Rosamond kissed her effusively, and she dreamily muttered, "He must
be saved." There was a sort of strange mist round her, as though
she knew not what she was doing, and she longed to be alone. She
would not let Rosamond drive her beyond the Sirenwood gate, but
insisted on walking through the park alone in the darkness, by that
very path where Fra