The days and weeks that followed tried Mildred sorely; heavy autumnal rains had set in; wet grass, dripping foliage, heaps of rotting leaves saturated with moisture, met her eyes daily. A sunless, lurid atmosphere surrounded everything; by and by the rain ceased, and a merciless wind drove across the fells, drying up the soddened pools, whirling the last red leaves from the bare stems, and threatening to beat in the vicarage windows. A terrible scarping wind, whose very breath was bitterness to flesh and blood, blatant and unresting, filled the valley with a strange voice and life. The river was full to the brim now; the brown water that rushed below the terrace carried away sticks and branches, and light eddying leaves; great fires roared up the vicarage chimneys, while the girls sat and shivered beside them. Those nights were terrible to Mildred--the wild stir and tumult, the fury of the great rushing wind, fevered her blood with strange excitement, and drove sleep from her pillow, or, when weariness overcame her, haunted her brain with painful images. Never had the tranquil soul so lacked tranquillity, never had daily life, never had the many-folded hours, held such torture for her. 'I must have change, or I shall be ill,' she thought, as she contemplated her wan and bloodless exterior morning after morning. 'Anything but that--anything but having him pitying me.' Relief by his hand might be sweet indeed; but a doubt of her own power of self-control, should weakness seize upon her, oppressed her like a nightmare, and the longing to escape from her daily ordeal of suffering amounted to actual agony. Morning after morning she opened Richard's letters, in the hope that her proposal had been accepted, but each morning some new delay or object fretted her. Richard had remained in London up to the last possible moment. Roy's injured foot had rendered him dependent on his brother's nursing; his obstinacy had led to a great deal of unnecessary delay and suffering; wakeful and harassed nights had undermined his strength, and made him so nervous and irritable by day, that only patience and firm management could effect any improvement; he was so reckless that it required coaxing to induce him to take the proper remedies, or to exert himself in the least; he had not yet roused himself, or resumed his painting, and all remonstrances were at present unavailing. Mildred sighed over this fresh evidence of Roy's weakness and instability of purpose, and then she remembered that he was suffering, perhaps ill. No one knew better than herself the paralysing effects on will and brain caused by anxiety and want of sleep; some stimulus, stronger than she or Richard could administer, was needful to rouse Roy's dormant energies. Help came when they had least looked for it. 'Is Roy painting anything now?' asked Polly suddenly, one day, when she was alone with Mildred.