So Robert promised, and he fully meant to keep his word; but as the night wore on restlessness came upon him, and distressing pain in the head and eyeballs. He wondered that any illness or pain could come near him, he was so happy so thankful--God had been so good to him, and Katharine was coming home! He could not sleep; no, the effort would be useless; so he made up the fire in the sitting-room, and he walked up and down, trying to tire himself into sleepiness. He had lost command over his thoughts; and though he might not have tried to guide them otherwise than they were going, he felt that he had lost it, and they hurried wildly into the past. All his life seemed to pass before him in a strange phantasmagoria, of which he was but a spectator; and innumerable forgotten scenes, and faces which he had not seen for years, rose up before him,--the first day he had seen Katharine, the day at the Flower-show, the day Mr. Guyon had shown him the letter. Good God, how terrible that recollection was! But she had forgiven him now, and he might fairly try to forgive himself, with this blessed assurance (and he grasped the letter in his breast with his hand as he walked up and down) in his possession, and the certainty of reading a full pardon in her eyes before long. And then he shuddered, shook through all his limbs with the strong contest of emotion, with irrepressible passionate delight and pain. Anon he rose again, and was whirled away upon another storm of thoughts. Mr. Guyon was present to him--the terrible sudden death. Ah, he had taken that too lightly; he had condemned the dead man too hastily and too heavily; the dead man, who had cared for trifles, who had found pleasure in things he could not comprehend, but was no worse than he; the dead man, who loved money and enjoyment, and naught beside. Well, he ought to have pitied him for that--he did pity him, for he was dead. His daughter could not come to him with soft words of peace, and heavenly smiles of pardon, as she was coming to the husband who had wronged her. He did pity the dead old man. He thought how coldly he had looked on the dead face--the rigid, ashy face; he remembered it well, how forlorn and ghastly it was! how awfully alone!--more so than any dead face he had ever seen. And then he remembered how carelessly he had attended the funeral; he had had no thought, no sorrow for the dead; his heart had been rent and wrung with anguish for the loss of Katharine; he had hardly heard the Burial Service at all: he had been glad when it was over, and had turned away to his business and his grief. He remembered some of it now: "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery." Yes, full of misery; but not now, not now--that was over. "The sure and certain hope"--this was troubling him; he would read it all through, and try to steady his thoughts upon it.