The long, long illness that followed, and the weary time which it took to heal the mutilated hand, proved the greatest blessings that could have befallen the weak and erring heart of Edward Kennedy. They spared him the necessity of that heart-rending meeting with those whom he best loved, the dread of which had been the most powerful incitement to urge upon him the thought of suicide. They gave him time to look before and after--they relieved the painful tension of his overwrought mind--they calmed him with the necessity for quiet thought and deep rest after the anguish and turmoil of the bygone months. When he awoke to consciousness, Eva was sitting by his bedside in the sick-room. Slowly the well-remembered objects and the beloved face broke upon his recollection, but at first he could remember nothing more, nor connect the strange present with the excited past. Still more slowly--as when one breaks the azure sleep of some unruffled mountain mere by the skimming of a stone, and for a long time the clear images of blue sky, and wreathing cloud, and green mountain-top, are shaken and confused on the tremulous and twinkling wave, but unite together into the old picture when the water has recovered its glassy smoothness--so still more slowly did Kennedy's troubled memory reflect the incidents, (alas! unbeautiful and threatening incidents), of the preceding days. They came back to him as he lay there quite still; and then he groaned. "Hush! dearest Edward," said Eva, who had watched his face, and guessed from its expressive workings the progress of his thoughts; "hush, we are with you, and all is going on well. Your hand is healing." He found that his right hand was tightly and firmly bandaged, and kept still by a splint. "Was it much hurt? Shall I recover the use of it?" "Yes, almost certainly, Dr Leesby says. I will tell papa that you are awake." "Is he very, very angry?" asked poor Kennedy. "He has forgiven all, dear," she said, kissing his forehead. "It was all very dreadful,"--and a cold shiver ran over her--"but none of us will ever allude to it again. Banish it from your thoughts, Eddy; we will leave Camford as soon as you can be moved."