“The crisis has come--and passed,” he said. “The fever has gone. I find his temperature almost normal, and the pulse quite quiet.” “What?” said Letitia. She would not believe her ears. She had no time to regulate her countenance to look as if she were glad. Her jaw fell, her eyes glared. “What?” she said, and she could say no more. “I do not wonder you are overcome. I feel myself as if it were too much. Sit down and take a moment to recover----” She sat down mechanically and glared at him. Her feeling was that if there had been a knife on the table she would have struck at him with it--a sharp one that would have turned that smile into a grimace and made an end of it. Too much! The fever gone, _gone_! She panted for breath, fiercely, like a wild beast. “It is wonderful, but it is true,” said Dr. Barker. He added after a moment: “It is curious the different ways we take it. This good little woman, who always hoped the best--cries--and you, Mrs. Parke, you----” “Do you mean that he will live?” Letitia said. “I hope so--I hope so. The only danger now is weakness; if we can feed him up and keep him quiet. It is all a question of strength----” “You have said that ever since you were called in.” “Ah, yes, that is true, but in a different sense. Strength to struggle with a fever is one thing; strength to pick up when it is gone is another. Yesterday, every moment the fire was flaming, burning out his life--now every moment is a gain. Look at him. He’s asleep. He hasn’t been asleep, to call sleeping--not honest sleep--for days and nights.” All this was but as the blowing of the wind to Letitia. She did not hear the words. She heard only over and over again, “the fever is gone----” But by this time she had begun to call her strength to her, to remember dully that she must not betray herself. She interrupted the doctor in the midst of his phrase. “Do you mean that he will live?” she said again. “As long, I hope,” said the doctor, promptly, “as his best friends could desire.” “I don’t seem to understand,” Letitia said. “I thought all hope was over. I thought he was dying. Why did you make me think so--and my husband, too?” “I am sorry if I have given you unnecessary pain, Mrs. Parke----” “Oh, unnecessary! it was all unnecessary, I suppose. You have--you have frightened us for nothing, Dr. Barker; given us such days--and nights.” She broke into a little wild laugh. “And all the time there was nothing in it!” she cried. The nurse had dried her eyes and was staring at this strange exhibition, and Letitia had begun to perceive that she had got out of her own control, and could not recover the command of her words and looks. She had been so taken by surprise, so overwhelmed by the sudden shock that the commotion in her brain was like madness. It was all she could do not to shriek out, to fly at the spectators like a wild cat. How dared they look and see what she had not the strength to conceal?