Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/226

 strong, hearty, manly voice—"what is the meaning of all this? why in the world are you up at this hour, and with a light? is any one sick?"

Wholly overcome with the sudden reaction of feeling, the overexcited woman put down the light, tottered forward, and sank fainting into his arms.

Colonel Browne was a man of warm feelings, but of a calm temperament; he loved his wife tenderly, but he had often seen her in a fainting fit, to which she was constitutionally subject; therefore he was not alarmed by it, and, remembering the lateness of the hour, he called up no one; bearing her back into her chamber, he found and applied the usual restoratives, which were always at hand, and in a few moments she recovered; and then, sitting with her cold, trembling hands in the firm, warm clasp of his, she told him the story of her terrible experience.

But Colonel Browne, although he listened patiently and respectfully to his wife's narration, was evidently incredulous—husbands are apt to be in such cases. In vain the excited woman reiterated her story: "Pooh,