Once more St.George thrust his hand within the bosom of the loose robe, and the heart was beating rapidly and regularly and with amazing force.

In a moment deep breaths succeeded one another, filling the breast of the unconscious man; but the eyelids did not unclose, and St.George took up the taper and bent to scan the quiet face.
St.George looked, and sank to his knees and looked again, holding the light now here, now there, and peering in growing bewilderment.
What he saw he was wholly unable to define.

It was as if a mask were slowly to dissolve and yet to lie upon the features which it had covered, revealing while it still made mock of concealing.

Colour was in the lips, colour was stealing into the changed face.

The _changed_ face--changed, St.George could not tell how; and the longer he looked, and though he rubbed his eyes and turned them toward the dark and then looked again, moving the taper, he could neither explain nor define what had happened.
He set the candle on the floor and sprang away from the quiet figure, searching the dark.