The room seemed no longer his--it had slipped back into that austere conventual privacy which had first impressed him.

Yet he hesitated; another strange suggestion--it seemed almost a vague recollection--overcame him like some lingering perfume, far off and pathetic, in its dying familiarity.
He turned his eyes almost timidly towards the bed.

The coverlet was drawn up near the throat of the figure to replace the striped cotton gown stained with blood and dust, which had been hurriedly torn off and thrown on a chair.

The pale face, cleansed of blood and disguising color, the long hair, still damp from the surgeon's sponge, lay rigidly back on the pillow.

Suddenly this man of steady nerve uttered a faint cry, and, with a face as white as the upturned one before him, fell on his knees beside the bed.