de; but yet it was all
alone that she fought her battle with death. No one went with her
into the dark valley of his shadow. She was deaf to all human
voices; far beyond all human help or comfort. Through the long
nights Roland heard her moaning and muttering, but it was the voice
of one at an inconceivable distance--of one at the very shoal of
being.

She came back from the strife weak as a baby. Her clear, shrill voice
was a whisper. She could not lift a finger. It was an exhausting
effort to open her eyes. A new-born child was in every respect more
alive and more self-helpful, for Denasia could not by look or
whisper make a complaint or a request. She was only not dead. The
convalescence from such a sickness was necessarily long and
tiresome. The fondest heart, the most unselfish nature must at
times have felt the strain too great to be borne. Roland changed
completely under it. His love for Denasia had always been dependent
upon accessories pleasant and profitable to himself, as, indeed,
his love for any human being would have been. While Denasia's
beauty and talent gave him _eclat_ and brought him money, he
admired Denasia; and while her personality made sweet his private and
enviable his public hours, he loved her.

But a wife smitten by deathly sickness into breathing clay--a wife who
could give him no delight and make him no money--a wife who compelled
him to waste his days in darkness and solitude and unpleasant duties
and his money in medicines and doctor's fees--was not the kind of wife
he had given his heart and name to. It was evident to him that Denasia
had failed. "She has failed in everything I hoped from her," he said
to himself bitterly one day, as he sat beside the still, death-like
figure; "and there must be an end of this some way, Roland Tresham."

Financial difficulties were quickly upon him, and though he had
written to Elizabeth a most pitiful description of his position, a
whole month had passed and there was no letter to answer his appeal.
He had momentary impulses to run away from a situation so painful and
so nearly beyond his control. But it was fortunately much easier for
Roland to be a scoundrel in intent than in reality. His selfish
instincts had some nobler ones to combat, and as yet the nobler ones
had kept the man within the pale of human affections. There had been
one hour when the temptation was very nearly too much for him; and
that very hour there came to him two hundred dolla