But a few minutes ago, and the three human beings who loved each other so well, and now feared not to cross the Moor in safety, were, as they thought, on their death beds. Deliverance now shone upon them all like a gentle fire, dispelling that pleasant but deadly drowsiness; and the old man was soon able to assist William Grieve in leading Hannah along through the snow. Her colour and her warmth returned, and her lover--for so might he well now be called--felt her heart gently beating against her side. Filled as that heart was with gratitude to God, joy in her deliverance, love to her father, and purest affection for her master's son, never before had the innocent maiden known what was happiness--and never more was she to forget it. The night was now almost calm, and fast returning to its former beauty--when the party saw the first twinkle of the fire through the low window of the Cottage of the Moor. They soon were at the garden gate--and to relieve the heart of the wife and mother within, they talked loudly and cheerfully--naming each other familiarly, and laughing between, like persons who had known neither danger nor distress. No voice answered from within--no footsteps came to the door which stood open, as when the father had left it in his fear, and now he thought with affright, that his wife, feeble as she was, had been unable to support the loneliness, and had followed him out into the night, never to be brought home alive.--As they bore Hannah into the house, his fear gave way to worse, for there upon the hard clay floor lay the mother upon her face, as if murdered by some savage blow. She was in the same deadly swoon into which she had fallen on her husband's departure, three hours before. The old man raised her up, and her pulse was still--so was her heart--her face pale and sunken--and her body cold as ice. "I have recovered a daughter," said the old man, "but I have lost a wife;" and he carried her, with a groan, to the bed on which he laid her lifeless body. The sight was too much for Hannah, worn out as she was, and who had hitherto been able to support herself in the delightful expectation of gladdening her mother's heart by her safe arrival. She, too, now swooned away, and, as she was placed on the bed beside her mother, it seemed, indeed that death, disappointed of his prey on the wild moor, had seized it in the cottage, and by the fire-side. The husband knelt down by the bed-side, and held his wife's icy hand in his, while William Grieve appalled, and awe-stricken, hung over his Hannah, and inwardly implored God that the night's wild adventure might not have so ghastly an end. But Hannah's young heart soon began once more to beat--and soon as she came to her recollection, she rose up with a face whiter than ashes, and free from all smiles, as if none had ever played there, and joined her father and young master in their efforts to restore her mother to life.