The dream which had soothed his fevered sleep no longer haunted his waking moments, and memory had much ado to feed love of life with the rememberance of one happy moment.
Milor the Marquis of Eglinton closed his eyes, sighing for that dream. The little room was so still, so peaceful, and from the tiny window a gentle breeze from across the English Channel fanned his aching brow, bringing back with its soothing murmur the memory of that stately home in England, for which his father had so often sighed.
How peaceful it must be there among the hills!
The breeze murmured more persistently, and anon with its dreamlike sound there mingled the frou-frou of a woman's skirts.
The sick man ventured to open his eyes.
Lydie, his wife, was kneeling beside his bed, her delicate hands clasped under her chin, her eyes large, glowing and ever grave fixed upon his face.
"Am I on earth?" he murmured quaintly.
"Of a truth, milor," she replied, and her voice was like the most exquisite music he had ever heard; it was earnest and serious like her own self, but there was a tremor in it which rendered it unspeakably soft.
"The leech saith there's no longer any danger for your life," she added.
He was silent for awhile, as if he were meditating on a grave matter, then he said quietly: