And rest was of vital importance to him; for though his wounds were now doing well, yet the effort to speak, or to move, was still not only difficult and painful, but very injurious and even dangerous to his lacerated chest. So he was enjoined to rest. Rest? His bed was fresh and fragrant, and on it there might be rest for the pain-racked, wearied body. But what rest could there be for the newly awakened mind and startled conscience? Lying there in forced inactivity, in his half-darkened chamber, unable to read, forbidden to talk, with nothing to engage his attention without, his thoughts were driven inward to self-examination. He struck a light and explored the gloomy caverns of his own soul. What he found there, appalled him. There were devilish furies, ferocious beasts, poisonous reptiles, gibbering maniacs—these were the forms of the passions that had possessed him, that still possessed him; but they were lethargic or sleeping now. Should he—could he cast them entirely out while they were so quiescent? And there were their victims and his own—the bleeding forms of wounded love; the fallen image of dethroned honor; the ghastly skeletons of murdered happiness. What a city of desolation, what a valley of Gehenna, was this sin-darkened soul! He groaned so deeply that the surgeon came to his side. “Where is your pain?” Alexander shook his head; he could not tell. The surgeon examined the wounds, but found them doing very well; and he changed their dressings, but this did not seem to do much good. The doctor wondered that his patient still suffered so much. He could not understand any better than Macbeth’s physician, how to minister to “a mind diseased.” The convalescence of the wounded man was not nearly so rapid or assured as his surgeon had hoped and expected. How could it be, when he was so haunted by memory and tortured conscience? In these long still days and nights on the sick-bed in the dark chambers, he was forced to look back upon his own life, to judge his own deeds. What had they been? What were they now? False and cruel he pronounced the one and the others—false and cruel his deeds, darkened and ruined his life. But out of all the gloom and horror shone brightly one form—holy as a saint, lovely as an angel—the form of his injured wife. Oh, with what an intense and vehement longing he longed for her presence!—longed for it, yet feared it—feared it, though in the image that he saw in “his mind’s eye” the whole face and form glowed and vibrated with compassion and benediction. Blessing brightened the clear brow; pity softened the dark eyes; love, love unutterable curved the lines of the crimson lips. Was it strange that he should have seen her only in this light?