a Millar had forgotten all about their
altercation. She sat there with hands clasped, lips parted, and brimming
eyes half raised to Heaven, as if in instinctive acknowledgment of a
thousand piteous prayers in the act of being answered by Him who counts
the stars and calls them by name, and heals the broken in heart. Miss
Franklin's account of Dora's look was that, for a moment, she was
positively frightened at the dear girl, Dora seemed so near another
world at that moment, and as likely as not to be holding communication
with it. Even Tom Robinson could not have been nearer when he was more
than half way across the border-land.

CHAPTER XXII.

A SHRED OF HOPE.

Tom Robinson's recovery continued a matter of fear and trembling for a
week longer before it became merely a process of time. But no sooner was
it clearly established to the initiated, and only likely to be
endangered by some unforeseen accident, than Annie Millar, in her
delight, lost sight of her former tactics, and called on Dr. Harry
Ironside to rejoice with her on their success.

"We have been permitted to pull him through. Oh, isn't it glorious? I
know we ought, as we are miserable sinners, to go down on our knees and
give God the thanks, and I hope we do with all my heart; but I also want
to sing and dance--don't you, Dr. Ironside?"

Nobody could imagine that Dr. Harry Ironside was indifferent to the
wonderful recovery, which was such a credit to his skill, of the man
whom he had nursed as if Tom Robinson had been his brother; but Dr.
Harry forgot all about his patient at that moment when he saw his
opportunity and seized it.

He had never had a faint heart, young as he was, but he had been dealing
with an exceedingly coy and high-spirited mistress. However, even she
had not been able to defy the effect of the last month of incessant
intercourse, of being engrossed in common with one object of interest,
when both had hung, as it were, on a man's failing breath, and were
indissolubly linked while it lasted. In the light of its fitful rising
and falling, its feeble fluttering, the terrible moments when it
appeared to stop and die away, how small and vain was every other
consideration! But their joint work was done by God's help, as they had
hardly dared to hope for a time, and now it was Harry's innings.

"I have something to say to you, Miss Millar. I have wished to say it
for a long time. You will not refuse to hear me?"

They were alone