The String of Pearls (1850), p. 229

Mrs. Ragg drew her breath so hard through her nose that she made a noise
like some wild animal in the agonies of suffocation.
"You really know me, Tobias?"
"Know you, dear? Oh, why should I not know you, Minna? God bless you!"
"May He bless you, Tobias."
They wept together; Minna forgot that there was anybody in the world but
herself and Tobias, and parting the long straggling masses of his hair from before
his face, she kissed him.
"For my sake, Tobias, now you will take care of yourself, and recover
quickly."
"Dear---dear Minna."
He seemed never tired of holding her hands and kissing them. Suddenly the surgeon stepped forward with a small vial in his hand.
"Now, Tobias," he said, "you are much better, but you must take this."
The look of surprise and consternation with which Tobias regarded him was beyond description. Then he glanced at the bedstead and the rich hangings! and he said---
"Oh, Minna, what is all this? Where am I? Is it a dream?
"Give it to him," said the surgeon, handing the vial to Minna. She placed the neck of it to his lips.
"Drink, Tobias."
Had it been deadly poison she had offered him, Tobias would have taken it. The vial was drained. He looked in her face again with a smile.
"If this is indeed a dream, my Minna, may I never awaken---dear---dear---
oneI---I---"
He fell back upon the pillow. The smile still lingered upon his face, but the
narcotic which the surgeon had had administered to him had produced its effect,
and the enfeebled Tobias fell into deep sleep. Minna Gray looked rather alarmed
at this sudden falling off of Tobias from waking to sleeping, but the surgeon
quieted her fears.
"All is right," he said. "He will awaken in some hours wonderfully refreshed, and I have the pleasure of now predicting his perfect cure."
"You do not know," said Colonel Jeffery, " what pleasure that assurance gives me."
"And me," said the captain.
Minna looked all that she thought, but she could not speak, and Mrs. Ragg still kept up the mysterious noise she produced by hard breathing with her mouth
close shut.
"Now, madam," said the surgeon to her, "our young friend must be left alone
for some hours. It is now six o'clock, and I do not expect he will awaken until
twelve. When he does so, I am very much mistaken if you do not all of you
find him perfectly restored and composed, although very weak."
"I will take care to be at hand," said the colonel. "Miss Gray perhaps you will call and see how he is to-morrow, and all I can say is, that you will be quite welcome to my house whenever you think proper, but let me impress upon you one thing."
"What is it, sir?"
"The absolute necessity of your keeping Tobias's place of abode and anything
concerning him a most profound secret."
"I will do so."
"If you do not, you will not only endanger the cause of justice, but in all probability his life, for he has an enemy with great resources, and of the most
unscrupulous disposition in the use of them: I say this much to you, because
the least indiscretion might be fatal."
"I will guard the secret, sir, as I would guard his life."
"That will do---now come down stairs, and let us have a glass of wine to