But as he advanced, and she saw his face, she remembered her kiss, hoped that he did not, and blushing beautifully, rose and came a step or two forward to meet him.  “None but good news, I hope,” she said.

“No, they are all better, thank God; and my little Nancy also.  Emily, how can I ever thank you?  My obligation is too deep for words.”

“Who could help wishing to be of use under such circumstances?  Am I not enough thanked by seeing you all better?”

“I hardly know how I could have presumed to intrude here and disturb you and—­and trouble you with such things as I can say—­when you are come home for an interval of rest and quiet.  Emily, if I had lost her, poor little girl, I never could have lifted up my head again.  It was hard on that blameless little life, to be placed in such peril; but I suffered more than she did.  Did you sometimes think so?  Did you sometimes feel for me when you were watching her day and night, night and day?”

“Yes, John, I did.”

“I hoped so.”

“But now that the greatest part of the sorrow is over, fold it up and put it away, lay it at the feet of the Saviour; it is his, for He has felt it too.”  When she saw his hands, that they had become white and thin, and that he was hollow-eyed, she felt a sharp pang of pity.  “It is time now for you to think of yourself,” she said.

“No,” he answered, with a gesture of distaste.  “The less of that the better.  I am utterly and for ever out of my own good graces.  I will not forgive myself, and I cannot forget—­have I only one mistake to deplore?  I have covered myself with disgrace,” he continued, with infinite self-scorn; “even you with your half divine pity cannot excuse me there.”

“Cannot I?” she answered with a sweet wistfulness, that was almost tender.

He set his teeth as if in a passion against himself, a flash came from the blue eyes, and his Saxon complexion showed the blood through almost to the roots of the hair.  “I have covered myself with disgrace—­I am the most unmanly fool that ever breathed—­I hate myself!” He started up and paced the room, as if he felt choked, whilst she looked on amazed for the moment, and not yet aware what this meant.

“John!” she exclaimed.

“I suppose you thought I had forgotten to despise myself,” he went on in a tone rather less defiant.  “When that night I asked you for a kiss—­I had not, nothing of the kind—­I thought my mind would go, or my breath would leave me before the morning.  Surely that would have been so but for you.  But if I have lived through this for good ends, one at least has been that I have learned my place in creation—­and yours.  I have seen more than once since that you have felt vexed with yourself for the form your compassion took then.  I deserve that you should think I misunderstood, but I did not.  I came to tell you so.  It should have been above all things my care not to offend the good angel so necessary in my house during those hours of my misfortune.  But I am destined never to be right—­never.  I let you divine all too easily the secret I should have kept—­my love, my passion.  It was my own fault, to betray it was to dismiss you.  Well, I have done that also.”