. Whether they came of an excess of the sprinkling, could not well
be guessed. The drenching at least was righteously intended.

Beneath their shut eyelids, they felt more and more the oppression of a
darkness not laden with slumber. They saw it insolidity; themselves as
restless billows, driven dashing to the despondent sigh. Sleep was denied
them.

Tasso slept. He had sinned unknowingly, and that is not a spiritual sin;
the chastisement confers the pardon.

But why was this ineffable blessing denied to them? Was it that they
might have a survey of all the day's deeds and examine them under the
cruel black beams of Insomnia?

Virginia said: 'You are wakeful.'

'Thoughtful,' was the answer.

A century of the midnight rolled on.

Dorothea said: 'He behaved very beautifully.'

'I looked at the General's portrait while he besought us,' Virginia
replied.

'One sees him in Victor, at Victor's age. Try to sleep.'

'I do. I pray that you may.'

Silence courted slumber. Their interchange of speech from the posture of
bodies on their backs, had been low and deliberate, in the tone of the
vaults. Dead silence recalled the strangeness of it. The night was
breathless; their open window a peril bestowing no boon. They were
mutually haunted by sound of the gloomy query at the nostrils of each
when drawing the vital breath. But for that, they thought they might have
slept.

Bed spake to bed:

'The words of Mr. Stuart Rem last Sunday!' 'He said: "Be just." Could one
but see direction!'

'In obscurity, feeling is a guide.'

'The heart.'

'It may sometimes be followed.'

'When it concerns the family.'

'He would have the living, who are seeking peace, be just.'

'Not to assume the seat of justice.'

Again they lay as tombstone effigies, that have committed the passage of
affairs to another procession of the Ages.

There was a gentle sniff, in hopeless confirmation of the experience of
its predecessors. A sister to it ensued.

'Could Victor have spoken so, without assurance in his conscience, that
his entreaty was righteously addressed to us? that we . . .'

'And no others!'

'I think of his language. He loves the child.'

'In heart as in mind, he is eminently gifted; acknowledgeing error.'

'He was very young.'

The huge funereal minutes conducted their sonorous hearse, the hour.

It struck in the bed-room: Three.

No more than three of the clock, it was the voice telling of half the
precious resto