very gate of death, grew into his heart.  He dreaded the moment when she would open her eyes, and his might no longer wander at will over her countenance.  Again and again in the night he put a hand under her head, and held a cooling draught to her lips; but not even when she drank did her eyes open:  like a child too weak to trust itself, therefore free of all anxiety and fear, she took whatever came, questioning nothing.  He sat at the foot of the bed, where, with the slightest movement, he could, through the opening of the curtains, see her perfectly.

By some change of position, he had unknowingly drawn one of them back a little from between her and him, as he sat thinking about her.  The candle shone full upon his face, but the other curtain was between the candle and his patient.  Suddenly she opened her eyes.

A dream had been with her, and she did not yet know that it was gone.  She could hardly be said to know any thing.  Fever from loss of blood; uneasiness, perhaps, from the presence in her system of elements elsewhere fashioned and strangely foreign to its economy; the remnants of sleep and of the dream; the bewilderment of sudden awaking—­all had combined to paralyze her judgment, and give her imagination full career.  When she opened her eyes, she saw a beautiful face, and nothing else, and it seemed to her itself the source of the light by which she saw it.  Her dream had been one of great trouble; and when she beheld the shining countenance, she thought it was the face of the Saviour:  he was looking down upon her heart, which he held in his hand, and reading all that was written there.  The tears rushed to her eyes, and the next moment Faber saw two fountains of light and weeping in the face which had been but as of loveliest marble.  The curtain fell between them, and the lady thought the vision had vanished.  The doctor came softly through the dusk to her bedside.  He felt her pulse, looked to the bandage on her arm, gave her something to drink, and left the room.  Presently Mrs. Puckridge brought her some beef tea.

CHAPTER XII.

THE MINISTER’S GARDEN.

Up and down the garden paced the pastor, stung by the gadflies of debt.  If he were in London he could sell his watch and seals; he had a ring somewhere, too—­an antique, worth what now seemed a good deal; but his wife had given him both.  Besides, it would cost so much to go to London, and he had no money.  Mr. Drew, doubtless, would lend him what he wanted, but he could not bring himself to ask him.  If he parted with them in Glaston, they would be put in the watchmaker’s window, and that would be a scandal—­with the Baptists making head in the very next street!  For, notwithstanding the heartless way in which the Congregationalists had treated him, theirs was the cause of scriptural Christianity, and it made him shudder to think of bringing the smallest discredit upon the denomination.  The church-butcher