The first doctors in Edinburgh were summoned; and for one-and-twenty days her father never left her bedside. During the first ten days delirium had wildly triumphed; and in her fits she would often repeat the names of "Wentworth," "L'Estrange." Afterwards, though insensible even to her father, the fever had become less violent, and the patient seemed daily more exhausted. At length the twenty-first day dawned and the critical hour approached--the crisis came! In one hour it would be known if she recovered, or sunk beneath it. How anxiously her worn father watched! and when at last the fever lessened, the crisis past, and favourable symptoms were observed, and for the first time the sufferer slept, he fell on his knees at her bedside and thanked heaven for it. Then first too did he consent to court sleep himself. After a long, death-like sleep, Ellen opened her eyes. She saw her father, who had also had a nap, by her side, and faintly smiled. He took her hand in his own and asked her if she knew him, and told her to press it if she did. She pressed it, faintly indeed, but he felt it. She could not speak, so weakened had the fever left her. Oh! had Lord Wentworth seen his Ellen then!--would he have known her? She was the mere shadow of the beautiful girl into whose hand he had pressed the ring; her eyes were still bright--still unchanged; and her long hair--once had it been doomed--once had the doctor nigh closed the open forfex on her silken tresses, but her father had stayed the ruthless spoiler. "If she is to die, it cannot save her; if she is to live, why rob her of one tress?" Thus was her long fair hair spared. But, oh! to have seen her wan face!--to have seen her wasted white arm!--it would have made a faithless lover start to have beheld the wreck of loveliness his perjury had wrought. This was the mere ghost of the beautiful Ellen in her ball-dress! When the patient became stronger, the first words she whispered to her father were:-- "Where is the ring?" "It is safe, sweet; I have it." "I thank you."