“I will be faithful--I will be true!” ... “God be with you!” Her absorption of mind did not hinder her from paying her visits and entering with full sympathy and tenderness into the trials and troubles of those she had come to see. The sight of her was always very welcome to the simple people who had known her from childhood, and who regarded her something as an angel visitor, as they had regarded her mother before her. Her visits paid, she was about to turn homewards, when, as she was passing the gate of the rectory, she encountered Mr. St. Aubyn riding forth on his sturdy cob. They exchanged greetings gladly. “I am on my way to St. Bride,” he said, smiling. “Shall we go in company? or are you coming to pay a visit to my wife?” “I think I will ride back with you,” said Bride, “and see Mrs. St. Aubyn another day. It will be too hot to be out with comfort if I linger longer. Are you coming to the castle?” “My errand is to your gardener’s cottage. My good friend Mr. Tremodart has asked me to visit young Tresithny in his terrible affliction. He seems to close his heart and his lips against all the world. My kind friend at the parsonage thought I might have more success in dealing with him; but I fear me the time has not yet come when the words of man will avail aught.” Bride’s face was very sorrowful. “It seems so sad,” she said softly, “so very, very sad. Oh, I am grieved for Abner. He looks aged and bowed like an old man, yet his faith never fails. He is a lesson to us all. ‘The child of many prayers,’ he calls Saul, and he will not give up hope. But it must be terrible for him to have to sit by and hear the poor young man shouting out all sorts of horrible imprecations and blasphemies in his delirium and pain. No one can tell whether he quite knows what he is saying; but his words are terrible to hear. Widow Curnow has come to help to nurse him, and I hear almost more from her than from Abner. I hoped he would have been able to see my cousin Eustace before he went to London; but he has never been enough himself, and all excitement has to be avoided. I believe Eustace has the most influence upon him of any person in the world. He has won his affection, and I fear poor Saul knows more of hatred than of love towards the world at large.”