"What a terrific clap! It must have woke Edna," she thought; and just as she was summoning up resolution to cross the dark passage in search of her, there was a hasty tap at the door, and Edna entered, fully dressed, and with a candle in her hand. "Edna! what does this mean? You have not been to bed at all?" exclaimed Bessie, regarding her friend with dismay. Edna's pale, disordered looks excited her alarm. "No," she returned, in a tone of forced composure, as she put down the candle with a shaking hand; "I was too nervous to sleep. I knew the storm was coming, and I sat up and waited for it; but I could not stop by myself any longer. Did I wake you, Bessie?" "The thunder woke me, and I thought of you. I am not a bit frightened; but one cannot sleep in such a noise. Hark at the rain; a perfect deluge! Come and lie down beside me, Edna, dear. You look quite wan and exhausted. "I have been thinking myself stupid, but I am still too restless to lie down. I feel as though I never want to sleep again, and yet I am so tired. Ah, you don't know the feeling! One seems on wires, and all sorts of horrid, troublesome thoughts keep surging through one's brain, and there seems no rest, no peace anywhere." And she shivered, and hid her face on the pillow as another peal broke over the house. Bessie did not speak for a minute, and then she said very tenderly: "Edna, dear, I know all about it. I am quite sure that you are miserable; I have known it all the time. Pride does not help you a bit now; in your heart you are sorrowful and repentant. You would give all you have in the world to bring him back again." But Edna silenced her. "Don't, Bessie, you are torturing me. I cannot bear sympathy; it seems to madden me somehow. I want people to think I don't care--that it is all nothing to me." "Ah, but you do care, Edna." "Yes, I know I do," in a despairing voice. "I will own, if you like, that I am very miserable, but you must not take advantage of me. I am weak to-night, and I seem to have no strength to brave it out. Don't be hard upon me, Bessie; you have never been in trouble yourself. You cannot put yourself in my place." A great pity rose in Bessie's heart as she listened to Edna's sad voice. "No," she said gently, "I have never known real trouble, thank God, except when Frank died. Mine has been a very happy life; but trouble may come to me one day." "Yes, but not through your own fault," replied Edna, in the same dreary hopeless voice. "There is no trouble so hard to bear as that. To think that I might have been so happy, and that my own temper has spoiled it all. Let me tell you all about it, Bessie; it will be a relief, even though you cannot help me, for to-night the misery is more than I can bear." And here she hid her face in her hands, and gave vent to a few choking sobs. Bessie only answered by a quiet caress or two, and after a few moments Edna recovered herself.