On her he fixed his eyes long and wistfully, gazing at her, as he would have done at a fair picture, without any desire to address her, or to do aught that should induce her to move from the graceful attitude in which she sat, giving no sign of life save in the twinkling of her long, downcast eyelashes, in the calm rise and fall of her gentle bosom, and the quick motion of her busy fingers. Jasper St. Aubyn was still weak, but he was unconscious of any pain or ailment, though he now began gradually to remember all that had passed before he lost his consciousness in the deep pool above the fords of Widecomb. So weak was he, indeed, that it was almost too great an effort for him to consider where he was, or how he had been saved, much more to move his body, or ask any question of that fair watcher. He felt indeed that he should be perfectly contented to lie there all his life, in that painless tranquil mood, gazing upon that fair picture. But while he lay there, with his large eyes wide open and fixed upon her, as if by their influence he would have charmed her soul out of its graceful habitation, a word or two spoken in a louder voice than had yet struck his ear, for persons had been speaking in the room all the time, although he had not observed them, attracted his notice to the other side of his bed. It was not so much the words, for he scarce heard, and did not heed their import, as the tone of voice which struck him; for though well-known and most familiar, he could in no wise connect it with the other things around him. With the desire to ascertain what this might mean, there came into his mind, he knew not wherefore, a wish to do so unobserved; and he proceeded forthwith to turn himself over on his pillow so noiselessly as to excite no attention in the watchers, whoever they might be. He had not made two efforts, however, to do this, before he became aware of what, while he lay still, he did not suspect, that several of his limbs had received severe contusions, and could not as yet be moved with impunity. He was a singular youth, however, and an almost Spartan endurance of physical pain, with a strange persistence in whatever he undertook, had been from very early boyhood two of his strongest characteristics. In spite, therefore, of his weakness, in spite of the pain every motion gave him, he persevered, and turning himself inch by inch, at length gained a position which enabled him clearly to discern the speakers.