hair which,
never relieved out of its braids through all this long night, began to
droop over her pale cheeks; and a quick sigh of impatience, of energy
restrained, of such powerlessness as her courageous capable soul, in
the very excess of its courage and capacity, felt in its approaching
conflict with the feeble foolish creature, who never could be stimulated
out of her own narrow possibilities, burst from Nettie's breast. But the
sigh was as much physical as mental--the long-drawn breath of mingled
weariness and restlessness--the instinct to be doing, and the exhaustion
of long labour and emotion, blended together. Thus she waited while
the cold spring morning brightened, and Mrs Smith went about her early
domestic business, returning often into the little back-parlour with
the mullioned window, of which domestic Gothic treatment had made a
condemned cell, to re-express her anxieties and horrors. Nettie had an
instinctive consciousness even of Mrs Smith's grievance. She knew this
dismal association would ruin "the lodgings," and felt that here was
another bond upon her to remain at St Roque's, however much she might
long to escape and flee away.

All these crowding and breathless thoughts were a few minutes after
reduced to absolute momentary stillness. It was by a step outside coming
hastily with rapid purpose along the silent way. Nettie rose up to meet
Edward Rider; not as the angry lover still fiercely resentful of that
rejection, which was no rejection, but only a bare and simple statement
of necessity; not as the suitor of Miss Marjoribanks; simply as the only
creature in the world who could help her, or to whom she would delegate
any portion of her own hard but inevitable work. She opened the door
before he had time to knock, and held out her hand to him silently, quite
unawares betraying her recognition of his step--her comfort in his
presence. That meeting flushed the doctor's anxious face with a mingled
shame and triumph not expressible in words, but left Nettie as pale, as
preoccupied, as much absorbed in her thoughts and duties as before.

"Dr Edward, I should not have sent for you if I could have done it all
myself," said Nettie; "but I knew you would think it right to be here
now. And I have Susan and the children to look to. I commit this to
you."

"Do they know?" said the doctor, taking the key she gave him, and
holding fast, with an instinct of compassion almost more strong than
love, the little h