The jealousy of a new-born love animated the passionate, almost fierce, little figure beyond him. In secret and exultant pride the young man marked her burning eye, the convulsive heaving of her beautiful breast, and her nervously extended hands. "Come here, Derrice," he said, quietly. She went readily to him, the young wife who had always been so shy, and, surrendering herself unheedingly to his caresses, struggled in vain for self-control. "It was such a shock,--I heard you were dead. I ran, then I stopped; my breath was all gone. I thought of my father, but it did not comfort me. Justin, am I going mad?" "No, no," and in intense and long-mastered emotion, he drew her head to his breast. "Lie there, dear child, and rest; you do not wish to leave me?" "No, no," she murmured. "I have been a bad wife to you. I thought of it, and my heart stood still. I will do what you say now, I promised my father to be good." A sigh of ineffable satisfaction escaped his lips. Very gently, in order not to startle her, he drew her closer to him, "Derrice, this is love." "Is it? It is more like death," and, raising her head, she looked sharply at him. "To love is to suffer, darling." "And is this the way you have been feeling about me?" "Yes, yes; I cannot describe the long-drawn-out misery of the past few weeks." In proud, sweet dignity she put her arms around his neck, kissed him once, then gently forced his head back on the pillow. "I shall never make you suffer again, and now I must enforce the doctor's orders. You are to be kept still." In a fascinated, incredulous ecstasy he watched her as she took up her position at his bedside. He could not persuade her to talk, and when, with an irrepressible remark, he occasionally lifted his head, she immediately averted her own, and he had a glimpse only of a pale, happy cheek. However, she sometimes extended a hand, and, with an air quite grandmotherly, smoothed the coverlet, or pressed his fingers, in order to assure him that she was not sleeping at her post of duty. CHAPTER XI. IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH. The day after Justin's escape from the river, he went about with an unusually thoughtful face. There was something on his mind, and, with a variation of his usually methodical habits, he several times left his desk to go to the bank door and look up and down the street. About the middle of the afternoon Miss Gastonguay came down Main Street with her usual gait, that aimed at being a stride but ended in a trot when she went quickly, on account of the shortness of her limbs. In the middle of the street, carefully keeping abreast of her, was the white pony, neither harnessed nor saddled, and following her about simply for purposes of entertainment.