“Thank you, with all my troubled heart, dear Margaret. I will indeed try again.” She sprang from the couch in a sudden agony, and grasping Margaret by the arm, looked at her with such a terror-stricken face, that she began to fear she was losing her reason. “Margaret,” she said, as if with the voice as of one just raised from the dead, speaking with all the charnel damps in her throat, “could it be that I am in love with him still?” Margaret shuddered, but did not lose her self-possession. “No, no, Euphra, darling. You were haunted with him, and so tired that you were not able to hate him any longer. Then you began to give way to him. That was all. There was no love in that.” Euphra’s grasp relaxed. “Do you think so?” “Yes.” A pause followed. “Do you think God cares to have me do his will? Is it anything to him?” “I am sure of it. Why did he make you else? But it is not for the sake of being obeyed that he cares for it, but for the sake of serving you and making you blessed with his blessedness. He does not think about himself, but about you.” “Oh, dear! oh, dear! I must not go.” “Let me read to you again, Eupra.” “Yes, please do, Margaret.” She read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, one of her father’s favourite chapters, where all the strength and knowledge of God are urged to a height, that they may fall in overwhelming profusion upon the wants and fears and unbelief of his children. How should he that calleth the stars by their names forget his people? While she read, the cloud melted away from Euphra’s face; a sweet sleep followed; and the paroxysm was over for the time. Was Euphra insane? and were these the first accesses of daily fits of madness, which had been growing and approaching for who could tell how long?