Robert's heart melted as he beheld the change in
Edward.

"I believe, Mr. Blancove, I'm a little to blame," he said. "Perhaps when
I behaved so badly down at Fairly, you may have thought she sent me, and
it set your heart against her for a time. I can just understand how it
might."

Edward thought for a moment, and conscientiously accepted the
suggestion; for, standing under that roof, with her whom he loved near
him, it was absolutely out of his power for him to comprehend that his
wish to break from Dahlia, and the measures he had taken or consented
to, had sprung from his own unassisted temporary baseness.

Then Robert spoke to the farmer.

Rhoda could hear Robert's words. Her fear was that Dahlia might hear
them too, his pleading for Edward was so hearty. "Yet why should I
always think differently from Robert?" she asked herself, and with that
excuse for changeing, partially thawed.

She was very anxious for her father's reply; and it was late in coming.
She felt that he was unconvinced. But suddenly the door opened, and the
farmer called into the darkness,--

"Dahlia down here!"

Previously emotionless, an emotion was started in Rhoda's bosom by the
command, and it was gladness. She ran up and knocked, and found herself
crying out: "He is here--Edward."

But there came no answer.

"Edward is here. Come, come and see him."

Still not one faint reply.

"Dahlia! Dahlia!"

The call of Dahlia's name seemed to travel endlessly on. Rhoda knelt,
and putting her mouth to the door, said,--

"My darling, I know you will reply to me. I know you do not doubt me
now. Listen. You are to come down to happiness."

The silence grew heavier; and now a doubt came shrieking through her
soul.

"Father!" rang her outcry.

The father came; and then the lover came, and neither to father nor to
lover was there any word from Dahlia's voice.

She was found by the side of the bed, inanimate, and pale as a sister of
death.

But you who may have cared for her through her many tribulations, have
no fear for this gentle heart. It was near the worst; yet not the worst.

CHAPTER XLVII

Up to the black gates, but not beyond them. The dawn following such a
night will seem more like a daughter of the night than promise of day.
It is day that follows, notwithstanding: The sad fair girl survived,
and her flickering life was the sole light of the household; at
times burying its members in dusk, to shine on them again mor