t the voice of your own heart," said Dinah.
"I must hasten back to her, for it is wonderful how she clings now, and
was not willing to let me out of her sight. She used never to make any
return to my affection before, but now tribulation has opened her heart.
Farewell, Adam. Our heavenly Father comfort you and strengthen you
to bear all things." Dinah put out her hand, and Adam pressed it in
silence.

Bartle Massey was getting up to lift the stiff latch of the door for
her, but before he could reach it, she had said gently, "Farewell,
friend," and was gone, with her light step down the stairs.

"Well," said Bartle, taking off his spectacles and putting them into his
pocket, "if there must be women to make trouble in the world, it's
but fair there should be women to be comforters under it; and she's
one--she's one. It's a pity she's a Methodist; but there's no getting a
woman without some foolishness or other."

Adam never went to bed that night. The excitement of suspense,
heightening with every hour that brought him nearer the fatal moment,
was too great, and in spite of his entreaties, in spite of his promises
that he would be perfectly quiet, the schoolmaster watched too.

"What does it matter to me, lad?" Bartle said: "a night's sleep more
or less? I shall sleep long enough, by and by, underground. Let me keep
thee company in trouble while I can."

It was a long and dreary night in that small chamber. Adam would
sometimes get up and tread backwards and forwards along the short space
from wall to wall; then he would sit down and hide his face, and no
sound would be heard but the ticking of the watch on the table, or
the falling of a cinder from the fire which the schoolmaster carefully
tended. Sometimes he would burst out into vehement speech, "If I could
ha' done anything to save her--if my bearing anything would ha' done any
good...but t' have to sit still, and know it, and do nothing...it's
hard for a man to bear...and to think o' what might ha' been now, if
it hadn't been for HIM....O God, it's the very day we should ha' been
married."

"Aye, my lad," said Bartle tenderly, "it's heavy--it's heavy. But you
must remember this: when you thought of marrying her, you'd a notion
she'd got another sort of a nature inside her. You didn't think she
could have got hardened in that little while to do what she's done."

"I know--I know that," said Adam. "I thought she was loving and
tender-hearted, and wouldn't tell