seemed to send a tide of loving oblivion over all
the harsh and stony space they had traversed since. The Divine Love that
had already shone upon her would be with her; she would lift up her soul
continually for help; Mr. Tryan, she knew, would pray for her. If she
felt herself failing, she would confess it to him at once; if her feet
began to slip, there was that stay for her to cling to. O she could never
be drawn back into that cold damp vault of sin and despair again; she had
felt the morning sun, she had tasted the sweet pure air of trust and
penitence and submission.

These were the thoughts passing through Janet's mind as she hovered about
her husband's bed, and these were the hopes she poured out to Mr. Tryan
when he called to see her. It was so evident that they were strengthening
her in her new struggle--they shed such a glow of calm enthusiasm over
her face as she spoke of them, that Mr. Tryan could not bear to throw on
them the chill of premonitory doubts, though a previous conversation he
had had with Mr. Pilgrim had convinced him that there was not the
faintest probability of Dempster's recovery. Poor Janet did not know the
significance of the changing symptoms, and when, after the lapse of a
week, the delirium began to lose some of its violence, and to be
interrupted by longer and longer intervals of stupor, she tried to think
that these might be steps on the way to recovery, and she shrank from
questioning Mr. Pilgrim lest he should confirm the fears that began to
get predominance in her mind. But before many days were past, he thought
it right not to allow her to blind herself any longer. One day--it was
just about noon, when bad news always seems most sickening--he led her
from her husband's chamber into the opposite drawing-room, where Mrs.
Raynor was sitting, and said to her, in that low tone of sympathetic
feeling which sometimes gave a sudden air of gentleness to this rough
man--'My dear Mrs. Dempster, it is right in these cases, you know, to be
prepared for the worst. I think I shall be saving you pain by preventing
you from entertaining any false hopes, and Mr. Dempster's state is now
such that I fear we must consider recovery impossible. The affection of
the brain might not have been hopeless, but, you see, there is a terrible
complication; and, I am grieved to say, the broken limb is mortifying.'

Janet listened with a sinking heart. That future of love and forgiveness
would never come then: h