After the failure in the reading of the newspaper, Anne turned to books. There were no new books in Oldfield, had poor Anne known the new from the old, and there were few of any kind. Miss Judy had more than any one else, and she was eager in offering all that had belonged to her father, as well as the handful of more recent ones gathered by her own simple tastes; and these last she urged upon Anne as being lighter and more cheerful, and consequently more suited to the cheering of an invalid. She was quite sure, so she said, smiling to hearten Anne, that Tom would like to hear about Becky; he had always liked lively, good-hearted people--like himself. But Anne instinctively chose the major's books instead, shrinking from all lightness as unsuited to her husband's need, and believing, as a woman of her type usually believes, that a man is most interested in what she herself least understands. When the reading of the dry old books had failed even more completely, if possible, than the reading of the newspaper, Anne tried to talk to her husband; and that was the hardest of all. She had always been a silent woman, well named "still-tongued"; and now that her sad heart lay in her bosom like lead, she found less and less to say, so that this last attempt was the most complete and the saddest of her many repeated defeats. It was then, when at the end of her own resources, that she held to Sidney's hand, and asked with her appealing eyes for the help which she knew not how to beg with her lips. After this Sidney went every day to see Tom, and told him, as amusingly as she could tell anything, of everything that was going on, no matter whether he listened or not. And she also sent Doris, who went often (taking Miss Judy's guitar at that little lady's suggestion) to sing to the invalid, and who was careful to choose her gayest songs and to play nothing less cheerful than the Spanish fandango; and it really seemed, once in a while, as if a light came into the sick man's darkened gaze as it rested upon the girl as she tinkled the old guitar, with the broad blue ribbon falling around her beautiful shoulders. The whole village was, in truth, unwearying in its kindness all the long days, through all those long months; but there were, nevertheless, the lonely hours of the endless nights to be passed alone, when the desperate husband and the despairing wife dumbly faced the appalling future,--a burning, unlighted, empty desert,--stretching perhaps through many terrible years. And even then Anne stood firm, with her sad, steady eyes ever on the white heights which she saw beyond the black gulf, wherein she strove perpetually with the powers of darkness for her husband's soul.