A cry rang through the ward, startling the physicians and the nurses, and waking those who were asleep. She clasped him in her arms, fell upon his face, and kissed his wasted lips. "O Paul! Can it be that you are here?" she said.
The throbbing of her heart was like the fluttering of a frightened bird. Sweet, calm, and beautiful as the setting sun was the smile upon his face, and in his eyes the celestial light of Peace! They closed, and he lay again as if in slumber.
"They told me that you were dead," she said.
There was no reply; she laid her hand upon his heart, but could feel no beating there; touched her fingers to his fleshless wrist, but could find no throbbing of the pulse. The thin blood was receding from his colorless lips,—the tide was going out. "Doctor! Doctor! O come quick! Save him!" she cried.
The doctor came and gazed upon the face of Paul. "He is not quite gone," he said, then moistened his lips with brandy. There was a quickening of the pulse. "If he rallies from this, we may save him," he said.
They wrapped him in warm flannels, rubbed his fleshless limbs, and gave him cordials, drop by drop. How long the hours,—the weary hours of hope and fear,—of expectation and distress,—while the faltering spirit, as if tired of earth, was but fluttering awhile along the shore of Time before taking its returnless flight over the dark and silent river to another land! Through the night Azalia sat by his side, watching him with sleepless eyes, fanning his pale brow. The morning sun beamed upon her still sitting there. Those who were accustomed to watch for her appearance in the early morning, restless with fever, beheld her as clothed with celestial brightness, and said one to another, "There sits our Angel of Light!"
Through the day she was there, watching the slow heavings of his heart, holding her breath while listening to assure herself that he was still breathing; hoping and fearing, holding her hands at times upon her own heart to still its wild, tumultuous beating,—giving him atom by atom the needful nourishment,—bending over him to smooth his pillow,—opening the casement for the winds to blow upon his bloodless cheek,—thus snatching him from the very jaws of death and winning him back to life!