Franceline rallied quickly, and with her returning strength Sir Simon’s fears were allayed. He had not been able to follow the doctor’s advice as to keeping alive any soothing delusions that might exist in her mind, but he succeeded, by dint of continually dinning it into his ears that there was no danger, in convincing her father that there was not; and the cheerfulness and security that radiated from him acted beneficially on her, and proved of great help to the medical treatment. And was Dr. Blink right in his surmise that a moral cause had been at work and contributed to the bursting of the blood-vessel? If Franceline had been asked she would have denied it; if any one had said to her that the accident had been brought on by mental suffering, or insinuated that she was still at heart pining for a lost love, she would have answered with proud sincerity: “It is false; I am not pining. I have ceased to think of Clide de Winton; I have ceased to love him.” But which of us can answer truly for our own hearts? We do not want to idealize Franceline. We wish to describe her as she was, the good with the evil; the struggle and the victory as they alternated in her life; her heart fluctuating, but never consciously disloyal. There must be flaws in every picture taken from life. Perfection is not to be found in nature, except when seen through a poet’s eyes. Perhaps it was true that Franceline had ceased to love Clide. When our will is firmly set upon self-conquest we are apt to fancy it achieved. But conquest does not of necessity bring joy, or even peace. Nothing is so terrible as a victory, except a defeat, was a great captain’s cry on surveying the bloody field of yesterday’s battle. The frantic effort, the bleeding trophies may inflict a death-wound on the conqueror as fatal, in one sense, as defeat. We see the “good fight” every day leading to such issues. Brave souls fight and carry the day, and then go to reap their laurels where “beyond these voices there is peace.” Franceline had gained a victory, but there was no rejoicing in the triumph. Her heart plained still of its wounds; if she did not hear it, it was because she would not; it still bemoaned its hard fate, its broken cup of happiness. She rose up from this illness, however, happier than she had been for months. It was difficult to believe that the period which had worked such changes to her inward life counted only a few months; it seemed like years, like a lifetime, since she had first met Clide de Winton. She resumed her calmly busy little life as before the break had come that suspended its active routine. By Dr. Blink’s desire the teaching class was suppressed, and the necessity of guarding against cold prevented her doing much amongst the sick; but this extra leisure in one way enabled her to increase her work in another; she devoted it to writing with her father; this never tired her, she affirmed--it only interested and amused her.