n find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of
the hand or beseeching glance of the eye--these are offices that demand
no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to propositions, no
weighing of consequences. Within the four walls where the stir and glare
of the world are shut out, and every voice is subdued--where a human
being lies prostrate, thrown on the tender mercies of his fellow, the
moral relation of man to man is reduced to its utmost clearness and
simplicity: bigotry cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion,
awed into quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it. As we bend over
the sick-bed, all the forces of our nature rush towards the channels of
pity, of patience, and of love, and sweep down the miserable choking
drift of our quarrels, our debates, our would-be wisdom, and our
clamorous selfish desires. This blessing of serene freedom from the
importunities of opinion lies in all simple direct acts of mercy, and is
one source of that sweet calm which is often felt by the watcher in the
sick-room, even when the duties there are of a hard and terrible kind.

Something of that benign result was felt by Janet during her tendance in
her husband's chamber. When the first heart-piercing hours were
over--when her horror at his delirium was no longer fresh, she began to
be conscious of her relief from the burden of decision as to her future
course. The question that agitated her, about returning to her husband,
had been solved in a moment; and this illness, after all, might be the
herald of another blessing, just as that dreadful midnight when she stood
an outcast in cold and darkness had been followed by the dawn of a new
hope. Robert would get better; this illness might alter him; he would be
a long time feeble, needing help, walking with a crutch, perhaps. She
would wait on him with such tenderness, such all-forgiving love, that the
old harshness and cruelty must melt away for ever under the
heart-sunshine she would pour around him. Her bosom heaved at the
thought, and delicious tears fell. Janet's was a nature in which hatred
and revenge could find no place; the long bitter years drew half their
bitterness from her ever-living remembrance of the too short years of
love that went before; and the thought that her husband would ever put
her hand to his lips again, and recall the days when they sat on the
grass together, and he laid scarlet poppies on her black hair, and called
her his gypsy queen,