His first sharp awakening was her reminder that the pair of intoxicated officers who had insulted her in the theatre were “gentlemen,” and so not to be chastised by _him_. His second—and then jealousy added a sting—was meeting Aspinall face to face in the hall, when the latter smilingly bowed himself out on his first visit. And now he brooded in despair over the final dissipation of his dream beneath the icicle-hung boughs on Ardwick Green; for the first time conscious that she belonged to another sphere. Never by look or word had he done himself, or her, or her parents, the dishonour of giving expression to his ambitious love; and now another had looked on his divinity, and won her for himself. It came upon him like a flash when that white-faced agony, that piteous cry, called him to imperil his own life—worthless in the scale against another, and _that_ other. It came upon him with a flash that scathed like lightning. He had forgiven the boy Aspinall long ago; and the man—well, Augusta’s happiness demanded the sacrifice, and he had made it. Out of his very love for Augusta he had saved the rival’s life she had prayed for. And he had been offered _money_ for the act which wrecked his own life. Thank God he had rejected it with scorn! A kind hand laid on his shoulder interrupted a reverie which had induced torpor. “Mr. Clegg, you are ill—your cold requires attention. You had better seek repose: you are quite feverish.” Repose! The man’s soul was on fire, as well as his body. Yet from his chamber a fortnight later emerged a grave business man, without an apparent thought beyond the warehouse. And what of Laurence Aspinall, whom we left with closed eyes, wrapped in blankets, on a sofa? He had hung suspended in the water for an hour by the clock in the tower of St. Thomas’ ivy-clad church; and notwithstanding he had kept his limbs and the water in motion so long as he had power, the chill had extended upwards, and though life had been called back, sight and reason were in abeyance. Shorn of his rich curls, for weeks he raved and struggled in the grasp of brain fever; and old Kitty, forgetting everything but her promise to his dead mother, watched and tended him night and day, albeit nurses from the Fever-Ward relieved each other in their well-paid care of him. The frost was gone; vegetation, bound so long, had leapt upwards from its chains. Lilacs and May-buds greeted him with perfume through the open windows, and even the daffodil and narcissus sent up their incense from the brim of the garden-pond when he began to show signs of amendment. “Better,” “Much better,” were the answers to inquirers (among whom may be cited Kit Townley, and Bob, their sometime groom); but the lilac and the hawthorn ripened and faded, and the daffodils gave place to the wallflower and carnation, and the rosebuds opened their ripe lips to June, yet the rich cotton merchant’s son saw nothing of the glow.