en awake for hours, till
at last she, too, sunk into a heavy sleep.

Never a night passes but in the silent watches some hearts are aching,
some sick and weary ones are tossing in their uneasy beds, some
suffering ones are racked with pain, either of body or mind! Our own
turn must surely come; but till it does come, we are so slow to realize
that for us, too, the night that should hush us to repose, and bring on
its wings the angel of sleep for our refreshing, will bring instead
sorrowful vigils by the dying, mourning for the dead, or cruel and
biting anxiety for the living, so that tears are our meat, as we cry,
"Where is now our God?"

Griselda slept on, and it was in the chill of the early morning before
the dawn that she awoke.

She started up, and at first could not remember what had happened. It
was quite dark, and she sprang from the bed, and, groping for the
tinder-box, struck a spark, and lighted a candle.

She was still scarcely awake, and it was only by slow degrees that she
recalled how the evening before she had waited, and waited in vain, for
a letter--his letter! an answer to hers--in which in a few words she had
told him of her father, and asked him to release her from her promise if
so he pleased. Then she had asked if his silence since the letter she
had written two days before, meant that he desired her to think no more
of him. Only to _know_, and not to be kept in uncertainty, she craved
for a reply--she begged for it--by the hand of Brian Bellis, who had
brought this, her last appeal.

"No answer, no answer!" she exclaimed; "and hark! that is the clock
striking--three--four. No answer--it is all over!" And as the words
escaped her lips she saw lying on the floor a letter, which had fallen
from the bed when she had sprung from it.

She picked it up, and became quiet and like herself at once. She saw by
the address it was from Leslie Travers, for in the corner was written:
"By the hand of Brian Bellis."

The tall candle cast its light on the sheet of Bath post, which had been
carefully sealed, and threw a halo round the young head which bent over
it.

"I have received no message from you"--so the letter
began--"but, dearest love, sweetheart, could you dream that any
circumstance could alter my love for you? Nay, Griselda, I will
not permit such a possibility to enter my head, or wake a
sorrowful echo in my heart.

"My only love, I am yours till death--and dea