Difficulties, for which no real satisfaction is attainable, compel us to faith.  Before the eyes of all the world, Nanny’s limbs had been broken, and by touching the sacred body she had been restored to strength again.  Why should not others find similar good fortune?  Delicate mothers first privately brought their children who were suffering from obstinate disorders, and they believed that they could trace an immediate improvement.  The confidence of the people increased, and at last there was no one so old or so weak as not to have come to seek fresh life and health and strength at this place.  The concourse became so great, that they were obliged, except at the hours of divine service, to keep the church and chapel closed.

Edward did not venture to look at her again; he lived on mechanically; he seemed to have no tears left, and to be incapable of any further suffering; his power of taking interest in what was going on diminished every day; his appetite gradually failed.  The only refreshment which did him any good was what he drank out of the glass, which to him, indeed, had been but an untrue prophet.  He continued to gaze at the intertwining initials, and the earnest cheerfulness of his expression seemed to signify that he still hoped to be united with her at last.  And as every little circumstance combines to favor the fortunate, and every accident contributes to elate him; so do the most trifling occurrences love to unite to crush and overwhelm the unhappy.  One day, as Edward raised the beloved glass to his lips, he put it down and thrust it from him with a shudder.  It was the same and not the same.  He missed a little private mark upon it.  The valet was questioned, and had to confess that the real glass had not long since been broken, and that one like it belonging to the same set had been substituted in its place.

Edward could not be angry.  His destiny had spoken out with sufficient clearness in the fact, and how should he be affected by the shadow? and yet it touched him deeply.  He seemed now to dislike drinking, and thenceforward purposely to abstain from food and from speaking.

But from time to time a sort of restlessness came over him; he would desire to eat and drink something, and would begin again to speak.  “Ah!” he said, one day to the Major, who now seldom left his side, “how unhappy I am that all my efforts are but imitations ever, and false and fruitless.  What was blessedness to her, is pain to me; and yet for the sake of this blessedness I am forced to take this pain upon myself.  I must go after her; follow her by the same road.  But my nature and my promise hold me back.  It is a terrible difficulty, indeed, to imitate the inimitable.  I feel clearly, my dear friend, that genius is required for everything; for martyrdom as well as the rest.”