clung to the poor delight in
her sister's praise, and shuddered and thirsted. She caught at the
minutes, and saw them slip from her. All the health of her thoughts went
to establish a sort of blind belief that God; having punished her enough,
would not permit a second great misery to befall her. She expected a
sudden intervention, even though at the altar. She argued to herself that
misery, which follows sin, cannot surely afflict us further when we are
penitent, and seek to do right: her thought being, that perchance if she
refrained from striving against the current, and if she suffered her body
to be borne along, God would be the more merciful. With the small cunning
of an enfeebled spirit, she put on a mute submissiveness, and deceived
herself by it sufficiently to let the minutes pass with a lessened horror
and alarm.

This was in the first quarter of the night. The dawn was wearing near.
Sedgett had been seen by Rhoda; a quiet interview; a few words on either
side, attention paid to them by neither. But the girl doated on his
ugliness; she took it for plain proof of his worthiness; proof too that
her sister must needs have seen the latter very distinctly, or else she
could not have submitted.

Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight. The little
which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of time,
gave a terrible swiftness to the hours. Half shrieking, she dropped her
head in Rhoda's lap. Rhoda, thinking that with this demonstration she
renounced the project finally, prepared to say what she had to say, and
to yield. But, as was natural after a paroxysm of weakness, Dahlia's
frenzy left no courage behind it.

Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, "I am still subject to nervous
attacks."

"They will soon leave you," said Rhoda, nursing her hand.

Dahlia contracted her lips. "Is father very unforgiving to women?"

"Poor father!" Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia's frame was taken
with a convulsion.

"Where shall I see him to-morrow?" she asked; and, glancing from the
beamless candle to the window-blinds "Oh! it's day. Why didn't I sleep!
It's day! where am I to see him?"

"At Robert's lodgings. We all go there."

"We all go?--he goes?"

"Your husband will lead you there."

"My heaven! my heaven! I wish you had known what this is, a little--just
a little."

"I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right," said Rhoda.

"If you had only had an af