For a year or more before this date Barbara had not been well. She suffered from persistent colds which she was unable to shake off, and with these came great depression of spirit. Now in her misery the poor woman went to her room, and falling on her knees prayed with all her heart that she might die. The burden laid upon her was more than she could bear. Only one consolation could she find, that her beloved husband had not lived to share it, for she knew it would have crushed him as it crushed her. Her father was now very old, and so feeble that everyone screened him from trouble so far as might be. But this particular trouble could not be hid, and Barbara told him all. “Do not give way, my dearest daughter,” he said, “and above all do not seek to fly from your trial, which doubtless is sent to you for some good purpose. Troubles that we strive to escape nearly always recoil upon our heads, whereas if they are faced, often they melt away. If you remain in the world to watch and help him, your son’s nature, bad as it seems to be, may yet alter, for after all I know that he loves you. But if you give up and leave the world, who can tell what will happen to him when he is quite uncontrolled and in possession of his fortune?” Barbara recognised the truth of her father’s words, and while he lived tried to act up to them. But as it happened Mr. Walrond did not live long, for one evening he was found dead in the church, whither he often went to pray. About this time the doctors told Barbara that her condition of health was somewhat serious. It seemed that her lungs also showed signs of being affected. Perhaps she had contracted the disease from her husband, and now that she was so broken in spirit, it asserted itself. They added, however, that if she took certain precautions, and above all went away from Eastwich, there was every reason to hope that she would quite recover her health. In the end Barbara did not go away. At the time Anthony was being instructed by a tutor who resided at the Hall to prepare him for the University and ultimately for the Army. Needless to say, she was employed continually in trying to compose the differences between him and this tutor. How then could she go away and leave that poor gentleman and her old mother, who when she was not staying with one of her other married daughters now made her home at the Hall? Thus she argued to herself, but the truth was that she did not wish to go. Her dearest associations were in the churchyard yonder, the churchyard where she hoped ere long she would be laid. She hated life, she sought and craved for death. This was her sin. Night by night she lay awake and thought of Anthony, her darling, her beloved. She remembered that dream of his about a home that awaited him in another world, and she loved to fancy him as dwelling in that place of peace and making ready for her coming.