was draped in white and strewn with bits of carved ivory.  The whole room showed the same mingling of luxury and simplicity that was to be seen in the great room below.  These fine ivory carvings, the rare prints and a painting or two on the rude walls, the alabaster vase on the rude stand,—­filled with fresh, late-blooming flowers,—­the costly white fur rug on the floor, the delicate work basket with its coquettish bows of riband, contrasted oddly with the other simple things which had evidently been made in the wilderness by unskilled hands.  Yet even those were tasteful and all painted white, so that the whole was purity, beauty, and exquisiteness.

Yet his gaze quickly turned from the room to her.  He knew that she believed him to be asleep; but it was so pleasant to watch her that he did not hasten to let her know that he was awake.  She was very busy at the window, with her back to him, and deeply absorbed in something that she was doing.  Moving lightly and swiftly to and fro across the light, she was working hard, with no more noise than the sunbeams made in glancing about her slender form.  He lay watching her for some time in dreamy delight, before he saw what it was that she was doing.  But presently he knew that she was making an aeolian harp.  The two fragile bits of vibrant wood to hold the strings were already in place on either side of the window, just where the upper and lower sash came together.  She was now engaged in carrying the threads of fine silk floss, which were to form the strings of this simple wind-harp, from one piece of wood to the other.  Back and forth she wove them across the current of air, moving with swift, noiseless motions of exquisite grace.  As the last fine fibre thus fell into place and was firmly drawn, a soft, musical sigh breathed through the shadowed room, the very shadow of music’s sweet self.

[Illustration:  “She was making an aeolian harp.”]

“Thank you,” Paul Colbert said.  “What beautiful things you think of, what lovely things you do!”

She turned quickly with a smile and a blush, and came to the bedside.

“Why—­you were not to wake up yet!  It’s much too early for a sick man to open his eyes.”

“But I am not a sick man any longer.  I am almost well.  I could get up now, if I wished,” jestingly, “I am getting well as fast as I can, just to convict the other doctor of a mistaken diagnosis.  What a fine old fellow he is!” with a quick change to earnestness.  “How kind he has been, how untiring in his attention and goodness to me.  And so skilful, too.  I am ashamed of my presumption.  A mere beginner like myself, to question his methods in dealing with the Cold Plague!  I don’t believe he made the mistakes they said he did.  He couldn’t!”

It was an unlucky recollection.  The thought of this mysterious epidemic which had grown worse, till it was now devastating the whole country, made him suddenly restless.  His patients were needing him sorely while he lay here, still bound hand and foot by weakness.  He turned his head miserably on the pillow.  It was not the first time that this thought had troubled him, and she knew the signs.  Laying a gentle, soothing hand on his tossing head, she spoke in the quieting tone that a woman always uses to soothe and comfort a child or a man whom she loves.