She did her best to help Amy without letting her brother suspect her presence, and gradually she made the room more comfortable for them. Corney had indeed taken a good many things from the house, but had been careful not to take anything Sarah would miss.

He was covered with the terrible infection, and if he survived, which often seemed doubtful, would probably be much changed in appearance, for Amy could not keep his hands from his face. In small trifles is the lack of self-control manifested, and its consequences are sometimes grievous.

He began at last to recover, but it was long before he could be treated in any way other than as a child—he was so feeble and unreasonable. The first time he saw and knew Hester, he closed his eyes and turned his head away as if he would have no more of such an apparition. She left, but watched to see him, in his own sly way, looking through half-closed lids to know whether she was gone. When he saw Amy where Hester had stood, his face beamed. “Amy,” he said, “come here.” When she came, he took her hand and laid it on his cheek, little knowing what a disfigured cheek it was.

“Thank God!” thought Hester. She had never seen him look so loving toward anyone, despite his disfigurement.

She took care not to show herself again till he was more accustomed to the idea of her presence.

The more she saw of Amy the better she liked her. She treated her patient with good sense, and was so carefully obedient to Hester and the doctor that she rose every day in Hester’s opinion, as well as found a yet deeper place in her heart.

His lordship wrote, making apology for anything he had said, from anxiety about one he loved. He would gladly talk the whole matter over with her as soon as she would allow him to. For his part, he had no doubt that her good sense would eventually convince her of the reasonableness of all he had sought to urge upon her. As soon as she was able, and judged it safe to admit a visitor, his aunt would be happy to call upon her. For the present, as he knew she would not admit him, he would content himself with frequent and most anxious inquiries after her, reserving discussion for a happier, and, he hoped, not very distant time.

Hester smiled a curious smile at the prospect of a call from Miss Vavasor. Was she actually going to plead her nephew’s cause?

As her brother grew better and things became a little easier, the thought of lord Gartley came oftener, with something of the old feeling for the man himself, but mingled with sadness and a strange pity. She would never have been able to do anything for him!

If God cannot save a man by all his good gifts, a woman’s giving of herself as a slave to his lower nature can only make him all the more unredeemable. But the withholding of herself may do something—may at least, as the years go on, wake in him some sense of what a fool he had been. The man who would go to the dogs for lack of the woman he fancies will go to the dogs when he has her too—and may possibly drag her to the dogs with him.