It was only a whisper she heard, but it reached the very centre of her being. "Katharine," he said softly again, with so much passionate entreaty in his wistful voice, that under its compelling influence she slowly turned and looked toward the other door from whence the sound had come. Then as she saw him, lifting one hand to her head while the other unconsciously sought her heart, she shrank back against the wall, and stared at him in voiceless terror. He dropped unsteadily to his knee, as if to worship at a shrine. "Oh, do not go away," he whispered. "I know it is only a dream of mine--so many times have I seen you, ever since the night the frigate struck and I sent you to your death on that rocky pass, in that beating sea. Ay, in the long hours of the fever--but you did not shrink away from me then, you listened to me say I love you, and you answered." He stretched out his hand toward her in tender appeal. She bent forward toward him. He rose to his feet, half in terror. "Kate," he said uncertainly, "is it indeed you? Are you alive again?" She was nearer now. One glad cry broke from her lips; he was in her arms again, and she was clasped to his heart!--a real woman and no dream, no vision. What the wind could only faintly shadow forth upon her cheek, sprang into life under the touch of his fevered lips, and color flooded them like a wave. Laughing, crying, sobbing, she clung to him, kissed him with little incoherent murmurs, gazed at him, wept over him, kissed him again. All the troubles of the intervening days of sadness and privation faded away from her like a disused chrysalis, and she sparkled with life and love like a butterfly new born. He that was dead was alive again, he had come back, and he was here! As for him, in fearful surprise, he held her to his breast once more, still unbelieving. She noticed then an empty sleeve, and raised it tenderly to her lips. "I lost it after an action with the British ship Yarmouth,--it was only a flesh wound at first,--we were long in reaching Charleston; the arm had to be amputated. It was a fearful action." "I know it," she interrupted; "I was there." "You, Katharine! Ah, that woman on the ship! I was not deceived then, and yet I could not believe it." "Yes, 'twas I. I gloried in your bravery, until I saw you lying, as I thought, dead on the deck. Oh, John, the horror of that moment! Then I called you, and you did not answer. Then I wanted to die, too, but now I am alive again, and so happy--but for this;" she lifted the empty sleeve to her lips. "How you must have suffered, my poor darling," she went on, her eyes filling with tears, her heart yearning over him. "And how ill you look, and I keep you standing here,--how thoughtless! Come to the bench here and sit down. Lean on me."