Very gladly Maddy accepted the offered relief, and utterly worn out with her constant vigils, she was soon sleeping soundly in her own room, while Flora, in the little back room of the house, was busy with her ironing. Thus there was no one to see Agnes as she went slowly into the sick-room where Uncle Joseph lay, his thin face upturned to the light, and his lips occasionally moving as he muttered in his sleep. There was a strange contrast between that wasted imbecile and that proud, queenly woman, but she could remember a time when the superiority was all upon his side, a time when in her childish estimation he was the embodiment of every manly beauty, and the knowledge that he loved _her_, his sister’s little hired girl, filled her with pride and vanity. A great change had come to them both, since those days, and Agnes, as she watched him and smothered the cry of pain which rose to her lips at sight of him, felt that for the fearful change in him she was answerable. Intellectual, talented, admired, and sought by all he had been once; he was a mere wreck now, and Agnes’s breath came in short, quick gasps as, glancing furtively round to see that no one was near, she laid her hand upon his forehead, and parting his thin hair, said, pityingly “Poor Joseph.” The touch awoke him, and starting up he stared wildly at her, while some memory of the past seemed to be struggling through the misty clouds, obscuring his mental vision. “Who are you, lady, with eyes and hair like _hers_?” “I’m the ‘madam,’ from Aikenside,” Agnes said, quite loud, as Flora passed the door. Then when she was gone she added, softly, “I’m Sarah. Don’t you know me? Sarah Agnes Morris.” The truth seemed for a moment to burst upon him in its full reality, and to her dying day Agnes would never forget the look upon his face, the smile of perfect happiness breaking through the rain of tears, the love, the tenderness mingled with distrust, which that look betokened as he continued gazing at her without a word. Again her hand rested on his forehead, and taking it now in his he held it to the light, laughing insanely at its soft whiteness; then touching the costly diamonds which flashed upon him the rainbow hues, he said: “Where’s that little bit of a ring _I_ bought for you?” She had anticipated this, and took from her pocket a plain gold ring, kept until that day where no one could find it, and holding it up, she said: “Here it is. Do you remember it?” “Yes, yes;” and his lips began to quiver with a grieved, injured expression. “He could give you diamonds, and I couldn’t. That’s why you left me, wasn’t it, Sarah—why you wrote that letter which made my head into two? It’s ached so ever since, and I’ve missed you so much. They put me in a cell where crazy people were—oh! so many—and they said that I was mad, when I was only wanting you. I’m not mad now, am I, darling?”