you won't understand her
sorrow--she won't expect you to; but you mustn't fail her; and you must
do as you are bid. This afternoon you must just go out for a walk, and
you must SLEEP, dear; that's what you want; you don't know what a
spectre you are; and you must just get well as quick as you can, for
Maud's sake and mine."

That afternoon there fell on Howard after his walk--though the world
was sweet to him and dear again, he was amazed to find how weak he
was--an unutterable drowsiness against which he could hardly fight. The
delicious weariness came on him like a summer air; he stumbled to bed
that night, and oh, the wonder of waking in a new world, the incredible
happiness that greeted him, happiness that merged again in a strange
and serene torpor of the senses, every sight and sound striking sharp
and beautiful on his eye and ear.

For some days he was only allowed to see Maud for little lengthening
periods; they said little, but just sate in silence with a few
whispered words. Maud recovered fast, and was each day a little
stronger.

One evening, as he sate with her, she said, "I want to tell you now
what has been happening to me, dearest. You must hear it all. You must
not grieve yourself about the little child, because you cannot have
known it as I did--but you must let me grieve a little . . . you will
see when I tell you. I won't go back too far. There was all the pain
first--I hope I did not behave very badly, but I was beside myself with
pain, and then I went off . . . you know . . . I don't remember
anything of that . . . and then I came back again, feeling that
something very strange had happened to me, and I was full of joy; and
then I saw that something was wrong, and it came over me what had
happened. The strange thing is that though I was so weak--I could
hardly think and I could not speak--yet I never felt more clear or
strong in mind--no, not in mind either, but in myself. It seems so
strange that I have never even SEEN our child, not with my eyes, though
that matters little. But then when I understood, I did indeed fail
utterly; you seemed to me so far away; I felt somehow that you were
thinking only about me, and I could simply think of nothing but the
child--my own child, gone from me in a moment. I simply prayed with all
my soul to die and have done with everything, and then there was a
strange whirl in the air like a great wind, and loud confused noises,
and I fell away out of life, and t