Once he stumbled over a dead body and found it the corpse of the
invalid in the room above. He seemed to himself to be lifting it
carefully, when a lady, fair and stately, in rich, sweeping garments,
took the burden from his arms, and, sinking with it on the floor,
kissed it tenderly and then bent over it with a look of intense
sorrow.

Farther on he saw Mr. and Mrs. Dubois, with Adèle, kneeling
imploringly, with terror-stricken faces, before a representation of
the Virgin Mary and her divine boy. Then the glare of light in the
building increased. Rushing to the entrance to look for the cause of
it, he there met Mrs. McNab coming towards him with a wild, disordered
countenance,--her white cotton headgear floating out like a banner to
the breeze,--shaking a brandy bottle in the faces of all she met. He
gained the door and found himself enwrapped in a sheet of flame.

Suddenly the whole scene passed. He woke. A glorious September sun was
irradiating the walls of his bedroom. He heard the movements of the
family below, and rose hastily.

A few moments of thought and prayer sufficed to clear his healthy
brain of the fantastic forms and scenes which had invaded it, and he
was himself again, ready and panting for service.




CHAPTER III.