Faber was on the point of ceasing his efforts in utter despair, when he thought he felt a slight motion of the diaphragm, and renewed them eagerly.  She began to breathe.  Suddenly she opened her eyes, looked at him for a moment, then with a smile closed them again.  To the watchers heaven itself seemed to open in that smile.  But Faber dropped the tiny form, started a pace backward from the bed, and stood staring aghast.  The next moment he threw the blankets over the child, turned away, and almost staggered from the room.  In his surgery he poured himself out a glass of brandy, swallowed it neat, sat down and held his head in his hands.  An instant after, he was by the child’s side again, feeling her pulse, and rubbing her limbs under the blankets.

The minister’s hands had turned blue, and he had begun to shiver, but a smile of sweetest delight was on his face.

“God bless me!” cried the doctor, “you’ve got no coat on! and you are drenched!  I never saw any thing but the child!”

“He plunged into the horrible hole after her,” said Dorothy.  “How wicked of me to forget him for any child under the sun!  He got her out all by himself, Mr. Faber!—­Come home, father dear.—­I will come back and see to Amanda as soon as I have got him to bed.”

“Yes, Dorothy; let us go,” said the minister, and put his hand on her shoulder.  His teeth chattered and his hand shook.

The doctor rang the bell violently.

“Neither of you shall leave this house to-night.—­Take a hot bath to the spare bedroom, and remove the sheets,” he said to the housekeeper, who had answered the summons.  “My dear sir,” he went on, turning again to the minister, “you must get into the blankets at once.  How careless of me!  The child’s life will be dear at the cost of yours.”

“You have brought back the soul of the child to me, Mr. Faber,” said the minister, trembling, “and I can never thank you enough.”

“There won’t be much to thank me for, if you have to go instead.—­Miss Drake, while I give your father his bath, you must go with Mrs. Roberts, and put on dry clothes.  Then you will be able to nurse him.”

As soon as Dorothy, whose garments Juliet had been wearing so long, was dressed in some of hers, she went to her father’s room.  He was already in bed, but it was long before they could get him warm.  Then he grew burning hot, and all night was talking in troubled dreams.  Once Dorothy heard him say, as if he had been talking to God face to face:  “O my God, if I had but once seen Thee, I do not think I could ever have mistrusted Thee.  But I could never be quite sure.”

The morning brought lucidity.  How many dawns a morning brings!  His first words were “How goes it with the child?” Having heard that she had had a good night, and was almost well, he turned over, and fell fast asleep.  Then Dorothy, who had been by his bed all night, resumed her own garments, and went to the door.