In a longer or shorter time there stole over me slowly a sleepy sense of relief.

I heard my own labored breathing.

I felt my hands moving feebly and mechanically, like the hands of a baby.

I faintly opened my eyes and looked round me--as if I had passed through the ordeal of death, and had awakened to new senses in a new world.
The first person I saw was a man--a stranger.

He moved quietly out of my sight; beckoning, as he disappeared, to some other person in the room.
Slowly and unwillingly the other person advanced to the sofa on which I lay.