No professional mediciner could be found to attend him but a good friar, better perhaps skilled in the healing art than many who claimed its monopoly, visited him daily. And in the long and frequent absences to which his other and numerous duties compelled the monk, there was one ever at hand to smooth the pillow, to wipe the brow, to listen to the moan, to watch the sleep. And even in that dismal office, when, in the frenzy of the sufferer, her name, coupled with terms of passionate endearment, broke from his lips, a thrill of {199} strange pleasure crossed the heart of the betrothed, which she chid as if it were a crime. But even the most unearthly love is selfish in the rapture of being loved! Words cannot tell, heart cannot divine, the mingled emotions that broke over her when, in some of those incoherent ravings, she dimly understood that _for her_ the city had been sought, the death dared, the danger incurred. And as then bending passionately to kiss that burning brow, her tears fell fast over the idol of her youth, the fountains from which they gushed were those, fathomless and countless, which a life could not weep away. Not an impulse of the human and the woman heart that was not stirred; the adoring gratitude, the meek wonder thus to _be_ loved, while deeming it so simple a merit thus _to_ love;--as if all sacrifice _in_ her were a thing of course,--_to_ her, a virtue nature could not paragon, worlds could not repay! And there he lay, the victim to his own fearless faith, helpless--dependent upon her--a thing between life and death, to thank, to serve--to be proud of, yet to protect--to compassionate, yet revere--the saver, to be saved! Never seemed one object to demand at once from a single heart so many and so profound emotions; the romantic enthusiasm of the girl!--the fond idolatry of the bride--the watchful providence of the mother over her child.