p all day,
the image of her father, wounded and in pain, alone in his own room,
untended by those who should be nearest to him, and passing the tardy
hours in lonely suffering. A frightened thought which made her start and
clasp her hands--though it was not a new one in her mind--that he might
die, and never see her or pronounce her name, thrilled her whole frame.
In her agitation she thought, and trembled while she thought, of once
more stealing downstairs, and venturing to his door.

She listened at her own. The house was quiet, and all the lights were
out. It was a long, long time, she thought, since she used to make her
nightly pilgrimages to his door! It was a long, long time, she tried to
think, since she had entered his room at midnight, and he had led her
back to the stair-foot!

With the same child's heart within her, as of old: even with the child's
sweet timid eyes and clustering hair: Florence, as strange to her
father in her early maiden bloom, as in her nursery time, crept down the
staircase listening as she went, and drew near to his room. No one was
stirring in the house. The door was partly open to admit air; and all
was so still within, that she could hear the burning of the fire, and
count the ticking of the clock that stood upon the chimney-piece.

She looked in. In that room, the housekeeper wrapped in a blanket was
fast asleep in an easy chair before the fire. The doors between it and
the next were partly closed, and a screen was drawn before them; but
there was a light there, and it shone upon the cornice of his bed. All
was so very still that she could hear from his breathing that he was
asleep. This gave her courage to pass round the screen, and look into
his chamber.

It was as great a start to come upon his sleeping face as if she had not
expected to see it. Florence stood arrested on the spot, and if he had
awakened then, must have remained there.

There was a cut upon his forehead, and they had been wetting his hair,
which lay bedabbled and entangled on the pillow. One of his arms,
resting outside the bed, was bandaged up, and he was very white. But it
was not this, that after the first quick glance, and first assurance
of his sleeping quietly, held Florence rooted to the ground. It was
something very different from this, and more than this, that made him
look so solemn in her eye.

She had never seen his face in all her life, but there had been upon
it--or she fancied so--some distur