“How do you feel, captain?  Does your head ache?” asked he.

“Slightly; I am better, I think,” replied the invalid, faintly.

“And you are better,” said the doctor, with evident satisfaction.  “The scalds are doing very well, and the wound on your head is not at all serious.”

“Now, sir, will you tell me where I am?”

Dr. Vaudelier imparted the information.

“Emily!  Emily!  Won but lost again!” murmured Henry.  “Would that we had sunk together beneath the dark tide!”

“Do not distress yourself, my dear captain.  We must be careful of this fever.”

“Distress myself!” returned Henry, not a little provoked at the coolness of the doctor.  “You know not the loss I have sustained.”

“But you must keep calm.”

“Doctor, did you ever love?” asked Henry, abruptly, as he gazed rather wildly at his host.

This was a severe question to a man whose matrimonial experience was of such a disagreeable nature.  But he remembered the day before marriage,—­the sunny dreams which had beguiled many a weary hour,—­and he sympathized with the unhappy man.

“I have,” replied the doctor, solemnly, so solemnly that it chilled the ardent blood of the listener.  “I have loved, and can understand your present state of feeling.”

“Then you know, if I do not regain her whom I have lost, I had better die now than endure the misery before me.”

The doctor was not quite so sure of this, but he did not express the thought.

“You will regain her,” said he.

“Alas!  I fear not.  The boat was almost a total wreck.  I saw scores of dead and dying as I clung to my frail support.”

“Fear not.  Believe me, captain, I am a prophet; she shall be restored to your arms again.”

“I thank you for the assurance; but I fear you are not an infallible prophet.”

“In this instance, I am.”

Henry looked at the doctor, and saw the smile of satisfaction that played upon his usually stern features.  It augured hope—­more than hope; and, as the wrecked mariner clings to the disjointed spar, his mind fastened upon that smile as the forerunner of a blissful reunion with her his soul cherished.

“Be calm, sir, be calm; she is safe,” continued Dr. Vaudelier.

“Do you know it?” almost shouted Henry, attempting to rise.

“Be quiet, sir,” said the doctor, in a voice approaching to sternness; “be quiet, or I shall regret that I gave you reason to hope.”

“Where is she?” asked Henry, sinking back at the doctor’s reproof, and heeding not the darting pain his attempt to rise had produced.

“She is safe; let this suffice.  I see you cannot bear more now.”

“I can bear anything, sir, anything.  I will be as gentle as a lamb, if you will tell me all you know of her.”

“If you keep entirely quiet, we will, in a few days, let her speak for herself.”