It was at the beginning of February, close upon the dead small hours of a bleak windy night, and Gilbert was keeping watch alone in the sick-room, while the professional nurse slept comfortably on the sofa in the sitting-room.

It was his habit now to spend the early part of the night in such duty as this, and to go home to bed between four and five in the morning, at which time the nurse was ready to relieve guard.
He had been listening to the dismal howling of the winds, threatening damage to neighbouring chimney-pots of rickety constitution, and thinking idly of the men that had come and gone amidst those old buildings, and how few amongst them all had left any mark behind them; inclined to speculate too how many of them had been men capable of better work than they had done, only carelessly indifferent to the doing of it, like him who lay on that bed yonder, with one muscular arm, powerful even in its wasted condition, thrown wearily above his head, and an undefinable look, that seemed half pain, half fatigue, upon his haggard face.
Suddenly, while Gilbert Fenton was meditating in this idle desultory manner, the sleeper awakened, looked full at him, and called him by his name.
"Gilbert," he said very quietly, "is it really you ?" It was the first time, in all his long watches by that bed, that John Saltram had recognised him.

The sick man had talked of him often in his delirium; but never before had he looked his former friend in the face with one ray of recognition in his own.

An indescribable thrill of pain went through Gilbert's heart at the sound of that calm utterance of his name.

How sweet it would have been to him, what a natural thing it would have seemed, to have fallen upon his old friend's breast and wept aloud in the deep joy of this recovery! But they were friends no longer.