Jack paused, strangely stirred in every fibre. He seldom essayed sentiment: with him the deeds of life had to answer, rather than any eloquence of words. He laid his strong, warm arm over Fred's shoulder, the old boyish caress with which he had often comforted unknowingly. "I think you have been doing nobly," he went on presently. "I did not look to find you so brave and persevering, so earnest in thinking of others; for, after all, a man's training does throw a great many shackles about him." Dr. Maverick entered at that moment. He had hurried off his office-patients to come and spend an hour watching this case, which held a fascinating interest for him. Some most unfavorable symptoms had supervened, but he did not despair. The nurse had been regularly trained, he had kept her busy in Yerbury the last year. He could trust her to note the slightest variations. Just now Miss Lawrence lay in a heavy stupor, so like death that one could not detect it from any motion. Her eyes were half open, her face had a dull purplish tint. The abundant hair had been confined in a thick plait, and brushed straight across her forehead. How distinct and finely clear the brows were pencilled, how haughtily sweet the curve of the pallid, fever-burned lips, how exquisitely round and perfect the chin, the slope of the throat and neck! Jack stole one glance,--they had both gone in with the doctor,--but it seemed almost sacrilegious, now when she was powerless to frown the intruder out of her presence. And he had carried her in his arms! "O Darcy," Maverick exclaimed presently, "I did not go to Miss Barry's, after all. I have been so desperately busy to-day." Fred glanced up, and his eye met that of his friend. Both flushed, and both mistook the cause. It was a curiously auspicious moment. Jack went over to him. "I wonder," he began, with a marked persuasiveness in his tone, "if you would like to have Sylvie Barry come over? She and your sister used to be such friends. And, in times like these, animosities and foolish prejudices ought to die out." Fred gave him a startled look, and half turned, his lids drooping to veil the secret in his eyes. Jack waited with breath that half strangled him. He had marvelled how these two souls were to be brought into friendly contact again; how Sylvie was to have an opportunity of knowing that Fred was redeeming the manliness of manhood, instead of grounding among its trivial shoals, and, if she ever had cared for him, to understand that he was not utterly unworthy. He had spoken--what if the chance should fail! Fred very naturally misinterpreted the emotion. Jack offered this out of the boundless tenderness of his heart, so confident was he of Sylvie's regard. "You think--she would come?" His own voice, under the great stress, sounded miles away to him, quite as if some other person had spoken. How often the tense strain of feeling is relieved by a tone or an incident quite out of the magnetic current!