With gentle mildness she repeated again and again who I was, and why I came, etc.

I was about to turn, and hasten from a scene so painful, when the physician laid his hand on my sleeve.

"Stop," he said, "there is a change." There was, indeed, and a marked one.

A faint glow spread over his pallid features--they seemed to gain the look of intelligence which belongs to vitality--his eye once more kindled--his lip coloured--and drawing himself up out of the listless posture he had hitherto maintained, he rose without assistance.

The doctor and the servant ran to give him their support.