One morning, the fifth of ’Lena’s illness, she seemed much worse, talking incessantly and tossing from side to side, her long hair floating in wild disorder over her pillow, or streaming down her shoulders.  Hitherto Aunt Betsey had restrained her barberic desire, each day arranging the heavy locks, and tucking them under the muslin cap, where they refused to stay.  Once the doctor himself had suggested the propriety of cutting them away, adding, though, that they would wait awhile, as it was a pity to lose them.

“Better be cut off than yanked off,” said Aunt Betsey, on the morning when ’Lena in her frenzy would occasionally tear out handfulls of her shining hair and scatter it over the floor.

Satisfied that she was doing right, she carefully approached the bedside, and taking one of the curls in her hand, was about to sever it, when ’Lena, divining her intentions, sprang up, and gathering up her hair, exclaimed, “No, no, not these; take everything else, but leave me my curls.  Durward thought they were beautiful, and I cannot lose them.”

At the side door below, the noonday stage was unloading its passengers, and as the tones of their voices came in at the open window, ’Lena suddenly grew calmer, and assuming a listening attitude, whispered, “Hark!  He’s come.  Don’t you hear him?”

But Aunt Betsey heard nothing, except her husband calling her to come down, and leaving ’Lena, who had almost instantly become quiet, to the care of a neighbor, she started for the kitchen, meeting in the lower hall with Hetty, who was showing one of the passengers to a room where he could wash and refresh himself after his dusty ride.  As they passed each other, Hetty asked, “Have you clipped her curls?”

“No,” answered Mrs. Aldergrass, “she wouldn’t let me touch ’em, for she said that Durward, whom she talks so much about, liked ’em, and they mustn’t be cut off.”

Instantly the stranger, whose elegant appearance both Hetty and her mistress had been admiring, stopped, and turning to the latter, said, “Of whom are you speaking?”

“Of a young girl that came in the stage, sick, five or six days ago,” answered Mrs. Aldergrass.

“What is her name, and where does she live?” continued the stranger.

“She calls herself ’Lena, but the ’tother name I don’t know, and I guess she lives in Kentucky or Massachusetts.”

The young man waited to hear no more, but mechanically followed Hetty to his room, starting and turning pale as a wild, unnatural laugh fell on his ear.

“It is the young lady, sir,” said Hetty, observing his agitated manner.  “She raves most all the time, and the doctor says she’ll die if she don’t stop.”

The gentleman nodded, and the next moment he was as he wished to be, alone.  He had found her then—­his lost ’Lena—­sick, perhaps dying, and his heart gave one agonized throb as he thought, “What if she should die?  Yet why should I wish her to live?” he asked, “when she is as surely lost to me as if she were indeed resting in her grave!”