Meantime Bathsheba has heard of his arrival in Jerusalem, and is momentarily expecting his appearance.  Alas! that she should dread his coming.  Alas! that she should shudder at every sound of approaching footsteps.  How fearful is the change which has come over her since last she looked on his loved face!  He is her husband still, and she, she is his lawful loving wife.  Never was he so dear to her as now.  Never did his noble character so win her admiration, as she contemplates all the scenes of her wedded life and reviews the evidences of it in the past.  How happy they have been!  What bliss has been hers in the enjoyment of his esteem and affection!  She is even now to him, in his absence, the one object of tender regard and constant thought.  She knows how fondly he dwells on her love, and how precious to him is the beauty which first won him to her side.  She is the “ewe lamb which he has nourished, which has drank from his own cup and lain in his bosom”—­she is his all.  He has been long away; the dangers of the battle field have surrounded him, and now he is returned, alive, well; her heart bounds, she cannot wait till she shall see him; yet how can she meet him?  Ah! fatal remembrance, how bitterly it has recalled her from her vision of delight.  It is not true! it cannot be true! it is but a horrible dream!  Her heart is true?  She would at any moment have died for him.  The entire devotion of her warm nature is his.  She had no willing part in that revolting crime.  Oh! must she suffer as if she had been an unfaithful wife?  Must she endure the anguish of seeing him turn coldly from her in some future day?  Must she now meet him and have all her joy marred by that hateful secret?  Must she take part in deceiving him, in imposing upon him—­him, the noble, magnanimous, pure-minded husband?  Oh, wretched one! was ever sorrow like hers?

The day passes, and the night, and he comes not.  Can he have suspected the truth?  Slowly the tedious hours go by, while she endures the racking tortures of suspense.  The third day dawns, and with it come tidings that he has returned to Rabbah, and his words of whole-souled devotion to his duty and his God are repeated in her ears.—­Faint not yet, strong heart; a far more bitter cup is in store for thee.

* * * * *

Bathsheba is again a wife, the wife of a king, and in her arms lies her first-born son.  Terrible was the tempest which burst over her head, and her heart will never again know aught of the serene, untroubled happiness which once she knew.  The storm has indeed lulled, but she sees the clouds gathering new blackness, and her stricken spirit shrinks and faints with foreboding fears.  The little innocent being which she holds fondly to her bosom, which seemed sent from heaven to heal her wounds, lies panting in the grasp of fierce disease.  She has sent for the king, and together they look upon the suffering one.  Full well he knows, that miserable man, what mean those moans and