il there has been an operation;
and perhaps he'll never be able to use his eyes properly again.'

The girl listened in an attitude of despair.

'He has seen an oculist?--a really good doctor?'

'He says he went to one of the best.'

'And how did he speak to you?'

'He doesn't seem to care much what happens. He talked of going to the
workhouse, and things like that. But it couldn't ever come to that,
could it, Marian? Wouldn't somebody help him?'

'There's not much help to be expected in this world,' answered the girl.

Physical weariness brought her a few hours of oblivion as soon as she
had lain down, but her sleep came to an end in the early morning, when
the pressure of evil dreams forced her back to consciousness of real
sorrows and cares. A fog-veiled sky added its weight to crush her
spirit; at the hour when she usually rose it was still all but as dark
as midnight. Her mother's voice at the door begged her to lie and
rest until it grew lighter, and she willingly complied, feeling indeed
scarcely capable of leaving her bed.

The thick black fog penetrated every corner of the house. It could be
smelt and tasted. Such an atmosphere produces low-spirited languor even
in the vigorous and hopeful; to those wasted by suffering it is the very
reek of the bottomless pit, poisoning the soul. Her face colourless as
the pillow, Marian lay neither sleeping nor awake, in blank extremity of
woe; tears now and then ran down her cheeks, and at times her body was
shaken with a throe such as might result from anguish of the torture
chamber.

Midway in the morning, when it was still necessary to use artificial
light, she went down to the sitting-room. The course of household life
had been thrown into confusion by the disasters of the last day or two;
Mrs Yule, who occupied herself almost exclusively with questions of
economy, cleanliness, and routine, had not the heart to pursue her round
of duties, and this morning, though under normal circumstances she would
have been busy in 'turning out' the dining-room, she moved aimlessly and
despondently about the house, giving the servant contradictory orders
and then blaming herself for her absent-mindedness. In the troubles of
her husband and her daughter she had scarcely greater share--so far
as active participation went--than if she had been only a faithful old
housekeeper; she could only grieve and lament that such discord had come
between the two whom she loved, and that in h