sleep. But
the three days' fast--'

'Two days, was it not?'

'Three. She took nothing since breakfast on Thursday.'

'Have you made out how she passed the last two days?'

'I wrung out some account. I believe this would never have occurred to
her if her brother had given her a sandwich at Paddington; but she came
home exhausted into a distaste for food, which other feelings exaggerated
into a fancy to die rather than face the family. She burnt the
provisions in a rage at their being forced on her, and she slept most of
the time--torpor without acute suffering. Last night in sleep she lost
her hold of her resolution, and woke to the sense of self-preservation.'

'An infinite mercy!'

'Not that the spirit is broken; all her strength goes to sullenness, and
I never saw a case needing greater judgment. Now that she is reduced,
the previous overwork tells on her, and it will be a critical matter to
bring her round. Who can be of use here? Not the married sisters, I
suppose? Miss Fulmort is all that a girl can be at nineteen or twenty,
but she wants age.'

'You think it will be a bad illness?'

'It may not assume an acute form, but it may last a good while; and if
they wish her to have any health again, they must mind what they are
about.'

Honora felt a task set to her. She must be Phoebe's experience as far as
her fifty years could teach her to deal with a little precocious
rationalist in a wild travestie of Thekla. _Ich habe geliebt und
gelebet_ was the farewell laid on Bertha's table. What a Thekla and what
a Max! O profanation! But Honor felt Bertha a charge of her own, and
her aid was the more thankfully accepted that the patient was quite
beyond Phoebe. She had too long rebelled against her sister to find rest
in her guardianship. Phoebe's voice disposed her to resistance, her
advice to wrangling, and Miss Fennimore alone had power to enforce what
was needful; and so devoted was she, that Honor could scarcely persuade
her to lie down to rest for a few hours.

Honor was dismayed at the change from the childish _espiegle_ roundness
of feature to a withered, scathed countenance, singularly old, and
mournfully contrasting with the mischievous-looking waves and rings of
curly hair upon the brow. Premature playing at passion had been sport
with edged tools. Sleeping, the talk was less, however, of the supposed
love, than of science and metaphysics; waking, there was silence between
weakness an