"Let us, retire, then;" and he drew the doctor from the apartment.
Pausing at the door, he called to Margaret in a half whisper. She
went out also, Emerson alone remaining.
Taking his place by the bedside, he waited, in trembling anxiety,
for the moment when her eyes should open and recognize him. At last
there came a quivering of the eyelids and a motion about the
sleeper's lips. Emerson bent over and took one of her hands in his.
"Irene!" He called her name in a voice of the tenderest affection.
The sound seemed to penetrate to the region of consciousness, for
her lips moved with a murmur of inarticulate words. He kissed her,
and said again-"Irene!"
There was a sudden lighting up of her face.
"Irene, love! darling!" The voice of Emerson was burdened with
tenderness.
"Oh, Hartley!" she exclaimed, opening her eyes and looking with a
kind of glad bewilderment into his face. Then, half rising and
drawing her arms around his neck, she hid her face on his bosom,
murmuring-"Thank God that it is only a dream!"
"Yes, thank God!" replied her husband, as he kissed her in a kind of
wild fervor; "and may such dreams never come again."
She lay very still for some moments. Thought and memory were
beginning to act feebly. The response of her husband had in it
something that set her to questioning. But there was one thing that
made her feel happy: the sound of his loving voice was in her ears;
and all the while she felt his hand moving, with a soft, caressing
touch, over her cheek and temple.
"Dear Irene!" he murmured in her ears; and then her hand tightened
on his.
And thus she remained until conscious life regained its full
activity. Then the trial came.
Suddenly lifting herself from the bosom of her husband, Irene gave a
hurried glance around the well-known chamber, then turned and looked
with a strange, fearful questioning glance into his face: "Where am I? What does this mean?"
"It means," replied Emerson, "that the dream, thank God! is over,
and that my dear wife is awake again."
He placed his arms again around her and drew her to his heart,
almost smothering her, as he did so, with kisses.
She lay passive for a little while; then, disengaging herself, she
said, faintly-"I feel weak and bewildered; let me lie down."
She closed her eyes as Emerson placed her back on the pillow, a sad
expression covering her still pallid face. Sitting down beside her,
he took her hand and held it with a firm pressure. She did not
attempt to withdraw it. He kissed her, and a warmer flush came over
her face.
"Dear Irene!" His hand pressed tightly upon hers, and she returned
the pressure.