And now my grief was greater than ever it had been before; so patient and resigned to the will of God as my child had shown herself heretofore, and no martyr could have met her last hour stronger in God and Christ, so impatient and despairing was she now. She gave up all hope, and took it into her head that in these heavy times of war the young lord had been killed by robbers. Nought availed with her, not even prayer, for when I called upon God with her, on my knees, she straightway began so grievously to bewail that the Lord had cast her off, and that she was condemned to nought save misfortunes in this world; that it pierced through my heart like a knife, and my thoughts forsook me at her words. She lay also at night, and "like a crane or a swallow so did she chatter; she did mourn like a dove; her eyes did fail with looking upward," because no sleep came upon her eyelids. I called to her from my bed, "Dear child, wilt thou, then, never cease? sleep, I pray thee!" and she answered and said, "Do you sleep, dearest father; I cannot sleep until I sleep the sleep of death. Alas, my father; that I was not burned!" But how could I sleep when she could not? I indeed said, each morning, that I had slept a while, in order to content her; but it was not so; but, like David, "all the night made I my bed to swim; I watered my couch with my tears." Moreover I again fell into heavy unbelief, so that I neither could nor would pray. Nevertheless the Lord "did not deal with me after my sins, nor reward me according to mine iniquities. For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great was his mercy toward" me, miserable sinner!