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I turned hurriedly away and had taken only a few steps, when I lit upon the entomologist. “Well, I’ll just–what are you doing here? Where were you when I was in your room just now?” His shoes were on.

“Vhat you vanted mit me? I vas by dot librair’ going. For vhat you moof dot putterfly-net fon t’e mandtelpiece? You make me too much troubple to find dot vhen I vas in a hurry!” He shook it at me.

“Hurry!” In my anger and distress I laughed. “My friend”–laying a hand on him–“you’ll hurry across the street with me.”

He waved me off. “Yes; go on, you; I coom py undt py; I dtink t’ere iss vun maud come into dot gardten, vhat I haf not pefore seen since more as acht years, alreadty!”

“Yes,” I retorted, “and so you’re here at the gate alone. Now come right along with me! Aren’t there enough lives in danger to-night, but you must” -He stopped me in the middle of the street.

“Mine Gott! vhat iss dot you say? Who–who–mine Gott! who iss her life in dtanger? Iss dot–mine Gott! is dot he-ere?” He pointed to Mrs. Fontenette’s front window.

I could hardly keep my fist off him. “Hush! you–For one place it’s here.” I pushed him with my finger.

“Ach!” he exclaimed in infinite relief. “I dt’ought you mean–I–I dt’ought–hmm!–hmm! I am dtired.” He leaned on me like a sick child and we went into the cottage parlor. The moment he saw the lounge he lay down upon it, or I should have taken him back into the dining-room.

“Sha’n’t I put that net away for you?” I murmured, as I dropped a light covering over him.

But he only hugged the toy closer. “No; I geep it–hmm!–hmm!–I am dtired–“

XX

Both patients, I found, were drowsing; the husband peacefully, the wife with troubled dreams. When the Baron spoke her eyes opened with a look, first eager and then distressful, but closed again. We put the old black woman temporarily into her room and Mrs. Smith hurried to our other neighbors, whence she was to despatch one of their servants to bid Senda come to us at once. But “No battle”–have I already used the proverb? She gave the message to the servant, but it never reached Senda. Somebody forgot. As I sat by Fontenette with ears alert for Senda’s coming and was wondering at the unbroken silence, he opened his eyes on me and smiled.

“Ah!” he softly said, “thad was a pleasan’ dream!”

“A pleasant dream, was it?”

“Yes; I was having the dream thad my wife she was showing me those rose- bushes; an’ every rose-bush it had roses, an’ every rose it was perfect.”

I leaned close and said that he had been mighty good not to ask about her all these many days, and that if he would engage to do as well for as long a time again, and to try now to have another good dream I would tell him that she was sleeping and was without any alarming symptoms. O lucky speech! It was true when it was uttered; but how soon the hour belied it!

As he obediently closed his eyes, his hand stole out from the side of the covers and felt for mine. I gave it and as he kept it his thought seemed to me to flow into my brain. I could feel him, as it were, thinking of his wife, loving her through all the deeps of his still nature with seven– yes, seventy–times the passion that I fancied would ever be possible to that young girl I had seen a few hours earlier showing her heart to the world, with falling hair and rending sobs. As he lay thus trying to court back his dream of perfect roses, I had my delight in knowing he would never dream-what Senda saw so plainly, yet with such faultless modesty– that all true love draws its strength and fragrance from the riches not of the loved one’s, but of the lover’s soul.