The stranger looked up from his dog, and seeing that the girl was standing, rose at once as if to make room for her on the bench.
But still the girl did not heed him. She hung over her father, and wiped his brow tenderly with a little kerchief which she took from her own neck for the purpose.
Nero, delighted to escape the cigar, had taken to some unwieldy curvets and gambols, to vent the excitement into which he had been thrown; and now returning, approached the bench with a low look of surprise, and sniffed at the intruders on his master's privacy.
"Come here, sir," said the master. "You need not fear him," he added, addressing himself to the girl.
But the girl, without turning round to him, cried in a voice rather of anguish than alarm, "He has fainted! Father! father!"
The stranger kicked aside his dog, which was in the way, and loosened the poor man's stiff military stock. While thus charitably engaged, the moon broke out, and the light fell full on the pale care-worn face of the unconscious sufferer.
"This face seems not unfamiliar to me, though sadly changed," said the stranger to himself; and bending toward the girl, who had sunk on her knees and was chafing her father's hands, he asked, "My child, what is your father's name?"
The child continued her task, too absorbed to answer.
The stranger put his hand on her shoulder, and repeated the question.
"Digby," answered the child, almost unconsciously; and as she spoke the man's senses began to return. In a few minutes more he had sufficiently recovered to falter forth his thanks to the stranger. But the last took his hand, and said, in a voice at once tremulous and soothing, "Is it possible that I see once more an old brother in arms? Algernon Digby, I do not forget you; but it seems England has forgotten?"