Bad Hugh

The drops and powders on the table remained undisturbed that night, for

the patient was too quiet, and the watcher was so tired, that the latter

never woke until the daylight was breaking, and Adah came to relieve

her. With a frightened start she arose, astonished to find it was

morning.

"I wonder if he had suffered from my neglect?" she said, stealing up to

Hugh, who had schooled himself to meet her gaze with wide, open eyes,

which certainly had in them no delirium, and which puzzled Alice

somewhat, making her blush and turn away.

The old doctor, too, was puzzled, when, later in the morning, he came

in, feeling his patient's pulse, examining his tongue, and pronouncing

him decidedly out of danger. The fever had left him, he said--the crisis

was past--Hugh was a heap better, and for his part he could not

understand why the mind should not also come clear, or what it was which

made his hitherto talkative subject so silent. He never had such a

case--he didn't believe his books had one on record; and the befogged

old man hurried home to see if, in all his musty volumes, unopened for

many a year, there was a parallel case to Hugh Worthington's.