“Thank you, Lady Graves,” she answered, colouring slightly; “I am both well and happy.” “Welcome home, dear!” said Henry; and putting his arm round his wife, he gave her a kiss, which she returned. “By the way,” he added, “I wonder if there is any news of your father.” “Thomson says he has heard that he is not very grand,” answered Lady Graves. “But I think there is a postcard for you in his writing; here it is.” Henry read the card, which was written in a somewhat shaky hand. It said: “Welcome to both of you. Perhaps Henry can come and give me a look to-morrow; or, if that is not convenient, will you both drive over on the following morning? “Yours affectionately, “G. L.” “He seems pretty well,” said Henry. “But I’ll drive to Bradmouth and take the two o’clock train to Monk’s Vale, coming back to-night.” “Ellen and her husband are going to be here to dinner,” said Lady Graves. “Oh, indeed! Well, perhaps you and Emma will look after them. I dare say that I shall be home before they go. No, don’t bother about meeting me. Probably I shall return by the last train and walk from Bradmouth. I must go, as you remember I wrote to your father from abroad saying that I would come and see him to-day, and he will have the letter this morning.” After her interview with Mr. Levinger, for the first time in her life Joan slept beneath her father’s roof—or rather she lay down to sleep, since, notwithstanding her weariness, the scene through which she had passed, together with the aching of her heart for all that she had lost, and its rebellion against the fate which was in store for her on the morrow, made it impossible that she should rest. Once towards morning she did doze off indeed, and dreamed. She dreamt that she stood alone upon a point of rock, out of all sight or hope of shore, while round her raged a sea of troubles. From every side they poured in upon her to overwhelm her, and beneath the black sky above howled a dreary wind, which was full of voices crying to each other of her sins and sorrows across the abysm of space. Wave after wave that sea rolled on, and its waters were thick with human faces, or rather with one face twisted and distorted into many shapes, as though reflected from a thousand faulty mirrors—now long, now broad, and now short; now so immense that it filled the ocean and overflowed the edge of the horizon, and now tiny as a pin’s point, yet visible and dreadful. Gibbering, laughing, groaning, and shouting aloud, still the face was one face—that of Samuel Rock, her husband. Nearer it surged and nearer, till at length it flowed across her feet, halving itself against them; then the one half shouted with laughter and the other screamed in agony, and, joining themselves together, they rose on the waters of that sea, which of a sudden had grown red, and, smiting her upon the breast, drove her down and down and down into the depths of an infinite peace, whence the voice of a child was calling her.