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.