At last the effort to sing ceased, and she was so still that the stillness was worse than the singing; it was so much like death, as she lay with her eyes closed, and the hands which had beaten the air so restlessly lying just where they were put, with no appearance of life in them. It was better so, the doctor said, as she was not wearing her strength away. She was young. She had strong recuperative powers, and would recover with close care and nursing. There was no lack of these. The best nurses London could afford were called to her aid, while either Miss Percy, or Fred, or his mother, who had joined them, was with her constantly. Fred’s voice she always knew, and it was Fred who, when she seemed drifting far out on the tide which has no turning, brought her back to a semblance of life and consciousness. “Louie! Louie!” he cried in an agony, when the pallor settled around her mouth and the pinched look came upon her face, which made the trained nurse throw up her hands in despair, “Louie! Louie, come back to us! You must not die!” he said, and something in his voice penetrated through the films of darkness settling upon her. There was a slight movement of her head, as if listening, and the doctor, who was watching, said, “Speak to her again. Call her name.” “Louie! Louie! come back. I want you,” Fred said, his voice trembling with the intensity of his feelings. There was a movement of suspense, a long, gasping sigh like a sob of relief, and Louie whispered, “I am trying to come, but it is so dark, and I am so tired, and the river runs so fast. Somebody must meet me on the way. I cannot come alone!” Whether Fred or any one met her on the way, none could tell, but from that time she rallied, and within a few days the joyful message went across the water to Merivale: “The crisis is passed; she will live.” As the physician had said, she had youth and strength and great recuperative powers, and her recovery was rapid when once it commenced; and after a week or two the family returned to Paris, and then went by easy stages to Florence, where the remainder of the winter was passed, and where Louie’s health and strength and beauty came back to her, the latter enhanced by the tinge of sadness her face always wore when she thought of the two graves, one in America and one in Kensal Green, where Fred told her he had ordered a stone erected in memory of her mother, but did not add that he had ordered a similar one to be placed at her father’s grave in Merivale. CHAPTER XXII IN PARIS