CHAPTER XXIV.
SAFE HAVEN
"The human heart finds shelter nowhere but in human kind."
—George Eliot.
For many days Pepeeta's life hung in the balance, her spirit hovering uncertainly along the border land of being, and it was only love that wooed it back to life.
When at length, through careful nursing, she really regained her consciousness and came up from those unfathomable abysses where she had been wandering, she opened her eyes upon the walls of a little chamber that looked out through an alcove into the living room of the Quaker house.
Dorothea had finished her afternoon's work and was seated before the great fireplace, while by her side stood Steven, speaking to her in whispers, and looking often toward the cot on which Pepeeta lay. An almost sacred stillness was in the room, for since the advent of the sufferer, even the quiet of that well-ordered household had deepened and softened.
The silence was suddenly broken by a voice feeble and tremulous, but very musical and sweet. It was Pepeeta, who gazed around her in bewilderment and asked in vague alarm, "Where am I?"
Dorothea was by her side in an instant, and taking the thin fingers in her strong hands, replied: "Thee is among friends."
Pepeeta looked long into the calm face above her, and gathered reassurance; but her memory did not at once return.