“That charmed flower, far from thy bower,
       I’d bear the long hours through,
     Thou should’st forget, and my sad breast
       The sorrows twain should rue. 
     O sad flower, O sad, sad ring to me. 
       The ring was a world too fine;
     And would it had sunk in a forty-fathom sea,
       Ere the morn that made it mine.”

Ten o’clock on the succeeding night.  It seemed an age to John Mortimer since Valentine had met him in the hall, a night and a day that were almost a lifetime had come between; but his thoughts were not confused now.  Something awful but fresh, breaking across his distracted mind, had diverted the torrent of his despairing fear lest his child should die through his mistake, and though he had bowed down his head and wept since the unexpected loss of another, those were healing tears, for with them came for a time escape from the rending strain that was breaking him down.

A sudden noise, when all was so quiet, and some one running down the garden, had startled him.

He tried to recall it.  Valentine was with him, having just come back from the town, and one of the doctors was coming up; he took him by the hand.  Other people were about him before he had time to think.  Some of them were in tears.  No, it was not Anastasia; he recollected how they kept telling him that it was not Anastasia, and then that they wished him to leave the house, though she was still in such imminent danger—­leave the house and go to the inn.  He could not receive a new thought suddenly.  Why should he go to the inn?  He was not anxious about his little Janie; he had not seen her for two or three days, but he could not leave the house now.

And yet he saw that he must do it.  He was walking among the others to a carriage in the yard.  He believed nothing; it was only as they drove along that he could understand the doctor’s words—­a change.  They had feared that there might be an internal injury; he was to remember that they had mentioned to him some symptoms which should have made him aware of their solicitude.  All very slowly, very cautiously said, but till he saw his child he did not believe a word of it.

The little face looked restless and troubled.  Dorothea was sitting at her side fanning her.  “Dear papa’s come,” she said, and then the child looked gravely satisfied, and for a long time she seemed to derive a quiet satisfaction from gazing at him.  Then, by slow degrees, she fell into a deep sleep.  He was so thankful to see it, and yet no one comforted him with any hopeful words.  And it must have been a long time, for all the west was orange when some one woke him from an exhausted doze, his first dream since his great misfortune.

All his children were well again.  They were all present but Janie.  Anastasia was sitting on his knees, rosy and smiling.  “Did she know,” he seemed to ask her, “what her poor father had done to her?” and while he felt this peace and joy of recovering her, some one touched his arm, and the dream was gone.  He started and woke.  Janie, yes, little Janie was there.  “Do you want me, my darling?” were his first words, before he had quite dismissed the delusive comfort of that dream.