And as he spoke he stooped and patted Faust, then forcing Lewis to accept his offer of assistance, they left the tent together. As his blood began once again to circulate the cramp and stiffness gradually disappeared, and ere the trio reached the carriage Lewis scarcely required assistance. On reaching Broadhurst he found the General waiting to receive him, and the instant he alighted he had to undergo a long, prosy, and pompous harangue, embodying that noble commander’s gratitude, during the delivery of which oration the subject of it was kept standing in his wet clothes, a compulsory act of homage to the cold-water system, by no means congenial to his feelings, mental or bodily. However, it came to an end at last, and Lewis was permitted to retire to his own room. Moreover, Charles Leicester (instigated thereunto by a hint from Miss Peyton) waylaid the apothecary who had been summoned on Annie’s account, and caused him to inspect Lewis’s condition, which measure resulted in a command to have his bed warmed, and instantly to deposit himself therein; with which medical ordinance Lewis was fain to comply. There he lay until, from being much too cold, he became a great deal too hot, for before night he was in a high state of feverish excitement, accompanied by violent pains in the head and limbs. His medical adviser was, however, fortunately really skilful, and by vigorous and timely measures he contrived to avert the rheumatic fever with which his patient was threatened; and after spending three days in bed Lewis arose, feeling indeed especially weak, but otherwise little the worse in body for his aquatic exploit. We say in body, for mentally he had suffered, and was still suffering bitterly. As he lay on the couch of sickness in the silent hours of the night, face to face with conscience, the recollection of the sin he had committed (for a sin it was, and he was too honest-hearted in his self-scrutiny not to recognise it as such) haunted him. The fact that he had been unable by his own act to repair the consequences of the evil he had meditated impressed him deeply--but for Faust Annie would have sunk ere he could have reached the spot, probably to rise no more. It appeared a special interference of Providence to convince him of the folly of self-reliance, and to impress upon his mind a sense of the mercy of God, in saving him from the consequences of his revengeful feelings. True, he had repented of his fault almost in the moment of committal; true, he had risked his life in proof of the sincerity of His repentance; true, the provocation he had received might, in the eyes of men, serve in great measure to justify him; still, the knowledge that but for the interposition of Providence he might now have felt himself a murderer filled him with emotions of the deepest penitence, and at the same time of the liveliest gratitude.