That night’s infinite sadness was concentrated upon Nesta.  She had need of her strength of mind and body.

The night went past as a year.  The year followed it as a refreshing night.  Slowly lifting her from our abysses, it was a good angel to the girl.  Permission could not be given for her to see her father.  She had a home in the modest home of Louise de Seilles on the borders of Dauphins; and with French hearts at their best in winningness around her, she learned again, as an art, the natural act of breathing calmly; she had by degrees a longing for the snow-heights.  When her imagination could perch on them with love and pride, she began to recover the throb for a part in human action.  It set her nature flowing to the mate she had chosen, who was her counsellor, her supporter, and her sword.  She had awakened to new life, not to sink back upon a breast of love, though thoughts of the lover were as blows upon strung musical chords of her bosom.  Her union with Dartrey was for the having an ally and the being an ally, in resolute vision of strife ahead, through the veiled dreams that bear the blush.  This was behind a maidenly demureness.  Are not young women hypocrites?  Who shall fathom their guile!  A girl with a pretty smile, a gentle manner, a liking for wild flowers up on the rocks; and graceful with resemblances to the swelling proportions of garden-fruits approved in young women by the connoisseur eye of man; distinctly designed to embrace the state of marriage, that she might (a girl of singularly lucid and receptive eyes) the better give battle to men touching matters which they howl at an eccentric matron for naming.  So it was.  And the yielding of her hand to Dartrey, would have appeared at that period of her revival, as among the baser compliances of the fleshly, if she had not seen in him, whom she owned for leader, her fellow soldier, warrior friend, hero, of her own heart’s mould, but a greater.

She was on Como, at the villa of the Signora Giulia Sanfredini, when Dudley’s letter reached her, with the supplicating offer of the share of his earldom.  An English home meanwhile was proposed to her at the house of his mother the Countess.  He knew that he did not write to a brilliant heiress.  The generosity she had always felt that he possessed, he thus proved in figures.  They are convincing and not melting.  But she was moved to tears by his goodness in visiting her father, as well as by the hopeful news he sent.  He wrote delicately, withholding the title of her father’s place of abode.  There were expectations of her father’s perfect recovery; the signs were auspicious; he appeared to be restored to the ‘likeness to himself’ in the instances Dudley furnished:—­his appointment with him for the flute-duet next day; and particularly his enthusiastic satisfaction with the largeness and easy excellent service of the residence ‘in which he so happily found himself established.’  He held it to be, ‘on the whole, superior to