“Thank Heaven!” was Dr. Clayton’s exclamation, and bending down, he said, “Rose, my precious Rose—she will live, and _you_ have saved her,” he continued advancing towards the dark statue, whose hand he pressed to his lips. “To you the credit is due, for you _worked_ when despair had rendered me powerless to do, but now I am strong. I am myself again, and if I have any skill it shall be exerted in her behalf.” There was a curl on Richard Delafield’s lip—a blur before his eyes, and an icy chill at his heart, which prevented him from answering. Bitter were the thoughts which crowded upon him, and which he strove to put away. If she lived, would it not be in a measure owing to the efficient means he had employed—and why should _he_ wish to save her? Would he not rather see her dead? It was an evil spirit which counselled with him thus, but ere long the noble nature of Richard Delafield conquered, and when at last her eyes unclosed, and turned towards Dr. Clayton, whose name she breathed, asking for her bridal dress, he looked on calmly while his rival kissed her again and again, telling her she should yet wear it and be his bride, but when he saw how she shuddered at these words, feebly answering, “No, no. Have they not told you that I cannot be your bride, for another has come between us?” a thrill of joy ran through his frame, but soon passed away as he thought it was merely the vagary of a disordered mind. All that day and night they stood over her, applying the remedies said to be most efficient in cases of the kind, and when the next morning came she was unquestionably better, though still in great danger from a tendency of the disease to the lungs, which, however, was less to be feared than its return to the brain. Very carefully and tenderly they watched her, and had not Mr. Delafield been blinded by her supposed love for another, he must have seen how much more readily she took things from him than from Dr. Clayton, following him with her eyes whenever he moved away, and seeming much more quiet when he was at her side. By the close of the third day she was nearly free from the brain fever, but much fear was felt by Dr. Clayton lest it should assume the typhoid form, which it did ere long, and then for three weeks she raved in wild delirium, driving Richard Delafield from her presence, shuddering when he came near, and begging of Dr. Clayton, whom she called her brother Charlie, “to send the black man with his ugly face away.”