"Oh, Willard! Oh, my husband! I am not dead; I was only wounded! I live still to say I forgive you all that is past!"
"Great Heaven! am I sane or mad?" he said, in a low, deep, wondering voice.
She approached, caught both his hands in hers, and kneeling down before him, said:
"Willard, look at me! feel my hands! my face! Listen to my words! see me kneeling before you! and believe I am your own faithful, loving Christie still!"
"Then she may be saved yet!" was his wild cry, as unheeding the slender girl kneeling at his feet, he sprang from the bed, with the one thought of Sibyl ever, ever uppermost in his mind.
"Who, Willard?"
"Sibyl! Sibyl! my wronged Sibyl!"
At the words, at the name, her blissful dream faded away. The past, the dreary, wretched past came back, and Christie's head dropped heavily on the bed.
He was scarcely in his right senses yet, but the action, and, above all, the necessity of haste restored him to himself; and stunned, bewildered, giddy with many emotions, he sank into a chair and strove to collect his thoughts.
"I know not yet whether I am sleeping or waking," he said, incoherently. "Christie—where are you? Come here; let me see you again, that I may know whether all this is not a vision of a disordered brain, that will fade away as many a similar one has done."