Professor Valeyon rapidly and collectedly gave his directions as to what steps were to be taken, and in a few minutes every thing was being done that skill could do. Snow was brought in to encourage back the life it had dismayed, and camphor and coffee awaited their turn to take part in the resuscitation. Slow and reluctant it was, like dragging a dead weight up from an unknown depth. More than another hour had passed away before Sophie's eyelids quivered, and a slight tremor moved her lips. By-and-by she opened her eyes, slowly and uncertainly, let them close again, and once more opened them; and, after several inaudible efforts, there came, like an echo from an immeasurable distance, one word, twice repeated: "Bressant! Bressant!" They looked around for him, but he was not in the room, nor in the house. Questioning among themselves, none could tell whether it were an hour or a minute since he had departed. When life began to take fresh hold on her he had so loved and wronged, his heart had failed him, and, without a word, he had gone out and away. But not to escape; for on no heart was the weight of sorrow and suffering so heavy as on his. CHAPTER XXXI. MOTHER AND SON. The grand ball at Abbie's was still in progress, though showing signs of approaching dissolution, when Bressant entered the house quietly at a side-door, and crept up to his room. He wished not to be seen or heard by anybody; but it happened that Abbie saw him, and the sight partly alarmed and partly relieved her. She could now account for the mysterious disappearance of Cornelia some hours before. But why had Bressant returned so secretly? and why were his movements all so surreptitious? Something must be out of order, either at the Parsonage or elsewhere. She reflected and conjectured, and of course became momentarily more and more uneasy. Nor did a short visit to his door relieve her apprehensions: a confused and non-descript sound had proceeded from within, as if the young man were packing up. Whither could he be going, she asked herself, on the very eve of his marriage? It is never difficult to find cause for anxiety; but it seemed to Abbie that the misgivings she entertained were reasonable and logical. Bressant had made up his mind to desert Sophie, because the fortune which he had all his life considered his own turned out to belong to another, on whose generosity he was too proud or too suspicious to depend. He was going off, either to struggle through poverty to a fortune of his own making, or, giving himself up to his misfortune, to remain all his life in want and misery; or, perhaps--Abbie did not openly admit this alternative, but still, knowing what she thought she did of his nature and the circumstances, the suspicion had existence--perhaps, in conjunction with a certain evil-disposed person in New York, he contemplated fraudulently absconding.