e purified and ennobled in other virtues beside
that of abnegation. He was to learn how sacred a thing strength might
become; he was to hold the soft hand on his arm, and never clasp it, to
feel the pressure of the dainty fingers, and make no sign; to meet her
bewildering smiles with the calmness of a strong spirit held in thrall;
to listen to words that seemed cruelly pregnant with the dangerous
glamour of hope, and yet to steel his heart against it all. In such
times as these we come to believe in a living, loving God, who gathers
up these great drops of agony as he "makes up his jewels," and that to
him this pearl of inward anguish is above price. Then, of all times, we
need to know that he cares for us, that we are not mere atoms floating
in unregarded space.

Dr. Maverick decided that his patient must have a change. She had
attained a certain amount of physical strength while her brain still lay
dormant, utterly exhausted after the great drain upon it. Now it began
to act again, and, not being in sympathy with the body, consequently
re-acted upon it. She walked about her room a little; she viewed herself
in the mirror, a horrid shadow, a mere caricature of her former beauty.
Dr. Maverick had tried his best to save her hair; but the fever had
burned out its vital essence, making it dry and harsh, so he had uttered
his reluctant edict. It was cropped short, and had lost its gloss; her
brilliant complexion was a ghostly, sallow, opaque white, her eyes large
and melancholy, every feature sharpened into that thin, worn, hungry
appearance. "A perfect fright," she said to herself. Why had they not
let her die? Of what avail was life to her?

Before her illness, in her desperate impatience with circumstances, she
had fancied herself a martyr, with the fagot and stake of a conventional
marriage on one hand, and the dreary desert of neglect and enforced
seclusion on the other. She had tried to make her own wretched and
passionate imaginings consume her very soul. She could rule no longer.
She could not exact homage and admiration from society; and, though in
her secret soul she despised it, yet what was there to life beside it?
No one wanted or needed her. No human being cared for her above all
others. She had gone on in ruthless pride, trampling, crushing, and now
the great world would be only too glad to pay her back; but it never
should. Even in this extreme bitterness of spirit an acknowledgment of
that divine rule of l