“Oh, Mr. Holden, if you love Mr. Armstrong and Miss Faith, go after them quick; don’t stop a minute.”

“Where are they?” said Holden.

“They go in that direcshum,” answered Felix, pointing with his chin, across the field.

“How long ago?”

“Ever so long; Oh, good Mr. Holden, do hurry,” said Felix, whose anxieties made him magnify the progress of time.

Holden asked no further questions, but increasing his speed, hastened on an Indian lope in the direction indicated, following the traces in the grass.

As he hurried on, his dream occurred to him.  The features of the country were the same as of that he had traversed in his sleep:  he remembered also, that the day of the week was Friday.  As these thoughts came into his mind, they stimulated him to press on with increased speed, as if something momentous depended upon the swiftness of his motions.  It was well he did so.  A moment later might have been too late; a moment more and he might have seen the fair creature he so loved weltering in her blood.  Too late to stay the uplifted hand of the deranged man with his own, he had uttered the cry which had arrested the knife.

Holden stooped down, and taking into his arms the insensible form of Faith, bore her to the brook.  Here he lavishly sprinkled her face with the cool water, and sobs and deep drawn sighs began, after a time, to herald a return to consciousness.  Armstrong followed, and as he saw the pale girl lying like a corpse in the arms of Holden, he threw himself down by her side upon the grass, and took her passive hand, which lay cold in his own.

“She is not dead, is she?” said he.  “O, say to me, she is not dead.  I thought I heard a voice from heaven—­I expected to hear it—­which commanded me to forbear.  Did I disobey the angel?  Was he too late?  Too late, too late, too late!  Oh, she is dead, dead.  My Faith, my daughter, my darling!  O, God, it was cruel in thee!”

But presently, as we have said, sighs and sobs began to heave the bosom of Faith, and as she opened her languid eyes their soft light fell upon the face of her father.

With a cry of delight he sprang from the ground.  “She is not dead,” he exclaimed, “she is alive!  I knew it would be so.  I knew it was only a trial of my faith.  I knew God would send his angel.  He has angels enough in heaven.  What does he want of Faith yet?  My darling,” he said, getting down and leaning the head of his daughter upon his bosom, “God did not mean it in earnest.  He only meant to try us.  It is all over now, and hereafter we shall be so happy!”

Holden, who, when Faith began to revive, had surrendered her to her father, stood looking on, while tears streamed down his face.  Faith had now so far recovered as to sit up and look about her, and throwing her arms around her father’s neck, she hid her face in his bosom.”

“My brain whirls,” she said, “and it seems to me as if I had had a dreadful dream.  I thought you wanted to kill me, father.”