She did not rally as rapidly as he had hoped and expected; her blood did not make as fast as it ought to have done, under the nourishing diet and judicious treatment that she was receiving, and the good man was greatly troubled as well as puzzled. It pained him deeply, and kept him wretchedly anxious to see her lying there day after day so languid and weak; so spiritless and nerveless—all her natural energy and vigor apparently exhausted. “What am I going to do with you, my girl, if you do not hurry up and get back your strength?” Dr. Hunt asked her one morning, with an assumed playfulness which he was far from feeling, and experiencing something very like a sense of guilt beneath the heavy glance of Salome’s great eyes. “I can hardly forgive myself for having robbed you of your strength.” “Pray, do not regret your experiment, since it has proved such a success,” the young girl began. “I shall not account it a success if it should result in prolonged injury to you,” he interrupted gravely. “Oh, it will not,” she answered, trying to speak reassuringly; “I shall soon be better. I do not suffer; I am only a little weak. But how is he—your patient—to-day?” she added, drooping her heavily fringed lids, while she nervously toyed with her handkerchief. “He is doing excellently,” Dr. Hunt answered with animation, for he had been jubilant over the success of his experiment. “So well,” he added, “that he is going to leave the hospital to-morrow.” “To-morrow!” breathed Salome, in a startled tone, a faint flush leaping to her waxen cheek, while her heart began to flutter strangely. “Yes; it is ten days since he began to rally, and he has improved very rapidly; but I am afraid he has drawn heavily upon your vitality, my child,” the physician concluded with a sigh. Salome smiled slightly; for she realized, if Dr. Hunt did not, something of the secret of her present weakness; for while she lay upon that other cot beside that noblelooking man, her whole soul had been concentrated upon the one thought of giving him life. “Take the best, the very best that I can give—only let him live!” had been her continuous prayer as she watched every compression of the bulb which had served to pump her life-current into his veins, until it had seemed to her as if she had literally willed and infused her strength and vigor into him. “Never mind,” she said, with a quick upward glance, in which he seemed to read a gleam of exultation, “it will soon come again, and—I am very glad.” There was so much of self-abnegation in what she said, that Dr. Hunt felt a suspicious moisture filling his eyes.