How delightful the mere involuntary act of breathing! How airily intoxicating the full, soft rush of blood through the arteries, swinging noisily like a dance to a song, never lost, in whatever labyrinthine windings it might wander. How the universe opened like a folded bud, like myriad buds that bloom in light and color and perfume! The air and the sunshine became miracles; common things slipped off their disguise, and revealed undreamed-of glories. All this in silence. And presently the silence would be found rhythmic like a tune. She went no farther. The point at which all these downy influences became twined into a cord as potent as the fabulous Gleipnir, and tightened about both body and soul with its soft, implacable coils--that her thought glanced away from. She carefully shook the shining powder into a little heap in the paper. There was ten times as much as she had ever taken at once; but then she had ten times greater need of rest and forgetfulness. Her head felt giddy, as if a wheel were going within it. {47} Catching at that thought of a wheel, her confused memory called up strange eastern scenes, a temple in a gorge among rocky mountains; outside, the dash of a torrent foaming over its rough bed between the palms; not far away, the jungle, where the tiger springs with a golden flash through the shadows; within, hideous carved idols with vestments of cloth of gold, and silver bowls set before them, the noiseless entering of a gliding lama, the bowed form and hand outstretched to twirl the praying-wheel, whereon is wound in million-fold repetition the one desire of his soul, "_Um mani panee, houm!_" O jewel in the lotos! Rest and forgetfulness! So her thought kept murmuring with weary persistency. As she raised the morphine to her lips, some one touched her arm. "Madam!" said a man's voice just behind her shoulder. She started and half turned. "Well, sir!" "What have you there?" he asked, without removing his hand. She shook herself loose from him. "Will you go on, sir? you are insolent!" "I cannot go while you have such a face, and while that paper is in your hand," Louis Granger said firmly; and reaching, took the morphine from her. Her glance slid away from his face, and became fixed. "O child! what would you do?" he exclaimed. She did not appear to hear him. She was swaying in her seat, and her breath came sobbingly. Mr. Granger called a carriage that was passing, and led her to it. She made no resistance, and did not object, scarcely noticed, indeed, when he seated himself opposite her. "Walk your horses till I find out where the lady wants to go," he said to the driver. When, after a few minutes of sickening half-consciousness, Margaret began to realize who and where she was, and looked at Mr. Granger, she met his eyes full of tears. "I have no claim on your confidence," he said, "but I desire to serve you; and if you can trust me, I assure you that you will never have reason to regret it."