thank you, this has
done me good."

"And you are really getting better?"

"Yes, I believe so. Perhaps I may feel it when this terrible day is
over."

What a comfort it would be, she said to herself, when he was gone, if we
had but a near relation like him, who would act for the mother, instead
of our being delivered up, bound hand and foot, to Mr. Cox. It would
have been refreshing to have kept him now, if I could have done it
without talking; it really seemed to keep the horrible thoughts in
abeyance, to hear that wonderfully gentle tone! And how kind and soft
the look was! I do feel stronger for it! Will it really be better after
next week? Alas! that will have undone nothing.

Yet even this perception of a possibility of hope that there would be
relief after the ordeal, was new to Rachel; and it soon gave way to that
trying feature of illness, the insurmountable dread of the mere physical
fatigue. The Dean of Avoncester, a kind old friend of Mrs. Curtis, had
insisted on the mother and daughters coming to sleep at the Deanery,
on the Tuesday night, and remaining till the day after the trial; but
Rachel's imagination was not even as yet equal to the endurance of
the long drive, far less of the formality of a visit. Lady Temple was
likewise asked to the Deanery, but Conrade was still too ill for her to
think of leaving him for more than the few needful hours of the trial;
nor had Alison been able to do more than pay an occasional visit at her
sister's window to exchange reports, and so absorbed was she in her boys
and their mother, that it was quite an effort of recollection to keep up
to Ermine's accounts of Colonel Keith's doings.

It was on the Monday afternoon, the first time she had ventured into the
room, taking advantage of Rose having condescended to go out with the
Temple nursery establishment, when she found Ermine's transparent face
all alive with expectation. "He may come any time now," she said; "his
coming to-day or to-morrow was to depend on his getting his business
done on Saturday or not."

And in a few minutes' time the well-known knock was heard, and Ermine,
with a look half arch half gay, surprised her sister by rising with
the aid of the arm of her chair, and adjusting a crutch that had been
leaning against it.

"Why Ermine! you could not bear the jarring of that crutch--"

"Five or six years ago, Ailie, when I was a much poorer creature," then
as the door opened, "I would make you a curts