“It is impossible to say, Sir Edward,” replied the physician:  “he refuses all medicines, and unless this fever abates, there is but little hope of recovery.”

Emily stood during this question and answer, motionless, pale as death, and with her hands clasped together, betraying by the workings of her fingers in a kind of convulsive motion, the intensity of her interest.  She had seen the draught prepared which it was so desirable that Denbigh should take, and it now stood rejected on a table, where it could be seen through the open door of his room.  Almost breathless, she glided in, and taking the draught in her hand, she approached the bed, by which sat John alone, listening with a feeling of despair to the wanderings of the sick man.  Emily hesitated once or twice, as she drew near Denbigh; her face had lost the paleness of anxiety, and glowed with another emotion.

“Mr. Denbigh—­dear Denbigh.” said Emily, with energy, unconsciously dropping her voice into the softest notes of persuasion, “will you refuse me?—­me, Emily Moseley, whose life you have saved?”

“Emily Moseley!” repeated Denbigh, and in those tones so remarkable to his natural voice.  “Is she safe?  I thought she was killed—­dead.”  Then, as if recollecting himself, he gazed intently on her countenance—­his eye became less fiery—­his muscles relaxed—­he smiled, and took, with the docility of a well-trained child, the prescribed medicines from her hand.  His ideas still wandered, but his physician, profiting by the command Emily possessed over his patient, increased his care, and by night the fever had abated, and before morning the wounded man was in a profound sleep.  During the whole day, it was thought necessary to keep Emily by the side of his bed; but at times it was no trifling tax on her feelings to remain there.  He spoke of her by name in the tenderest manner, although incoherently, and in terms that restored to the blanched cheeks of the distressed girl more than the richness of their native color.  His thoughts were not confined to Emily, however:  he talked of his father, of his mother, and frequently spoke of his poor deserted Marian.  The latter name he dwelt on in the language of the warmest affection, condemned his own desertion of her, and, taking Emily for her, would beg her forgiveness, tell her her sufferings had been enough, and that he would return, and never leave her again.  At such moments his nurse would sometimes show, by the paleness of her cheeks, her anxiety for his health; and then, as he addressed her by her proper appellation, all her emotions appeared absorbed in the sense of shame at the praises with which he overwhelmed her.  Mrs. Wilson succeeded her in the charge of the patient, and she retired to seek that repose she so greatly needed.

On the second morning after receiving the wound, Denbigh dropped into a deep sleep, from which he awoke refreshed and perfectly collected in mind.  The fever had left him, and his attendants pronounced, with the usual cautions to prevent a relapse, his recovery certain.  It were impossible to have communicated any intelligence more grateful to all the members of the Moseley family; for Jane had even lost sight of her own lover, in sympathy for the fate of a man who had sacrificed himself to save her beloved sister.