“Just so. Well, I was hurrying home from the bedside of a patient some two miles from here; very anxious to get home, too, out of the darkness and storm; when suddenly it was strongly impressed upon my mind that I was needed here and ought to come at once. It was a good half-mile out of my way, as you know; bad road, too, through the thickest of the woods, where the wind was blowing down trees, and one might at any moment fall on and crush me and my horse; but so strong was the impression I speak of that I really could not resist. And there surely was a providence in it,” he added reverently, “for by to-morrow morning medical aid would have come too late to give this poor woman even a chance for life.” “I am sure of it,” said the old lady; “and in her coming here also. I shall watch with her through the night, doctor.” “And I shall share your vigil,” he replied. The morning sun rose bright and clear, but its cheerful light brought no alleviation of the wanderer’s pain. She lay tossing on her couch unconscious of all the solicitude felt for her, all the kindness lavished upon her, now muttering incoherently, now crying out for “her child, her Ethel, her sweet, darling baby.” Immediately after breakfast Mr. Heywood went himself in search of a nurse, and having procured one, and seen her established by the bedside, he and Mike again drove over to the depot at Clearfield, reaching there in time for the morning train. When they returned Rolfe was with them. CHAPTER III. ONE FOR LIFE. “And doth not a meeting like this make amends For all the long years I’ve been wand’ring away?”--ANON. A noble, handsome fellow was Rolfe Heywood, and though the suffering stranger guest was neither forgotten nor neglected, “joy crowned the board” at Sweetbrier upon his return, and the weeks that followed were full of quiet happiness to himself, parents, and sister. He was succeeding well in the new State of his adoption, and hoped to persuade these dear ones to join him there at some not very distant day. He took a benevolent interest in the sick woman, and rejoiced with the others when the physician pronounced the crisis of the disease past and the patient in a fair way to recover. “She’s come to her full senses now, and there ain’t no doing anything with her,” announced the nurse a few days later, looking in at the open door of the room where the family were at breakfast. “Not a morsel of food will she take, not a drop of medicine will she swallow. She just lays there with her eyes shut, and every once in a while I see a big tear a-rollin’ down them thin, white cheeks o’ hern.” She withdrew with the last words, and while finishing their meal the family held a consultation on the case. On leaving the table, Mrs. Heywood repaired to the sick-chamber.