At that moment Alice called me, and I immediately went down stairs. I went with a tremulous and uncertain step, and an oppressed heart--to make any sacrifice he wished or asked--to do anything he desired of me. When I entered the library, my father looked up from his book with a momentary glance of surprise and inquiry; and with a heart beating so loud and so uneasily as mine it was hard to look unembarrassed and natural. I said breathlessly: "May I sit beside you, papa? I want to read a little," but I did not dare to look at him as I spoke--the calm everyday tone of his voice struck very strangely upon my excited ear as he answered me: "Surely, Hester," he said, with a slight quiet astonishment at the unnecessary question. He was perfectly unexcited--I could see neither care, nor anxiety, nor suffering in his calm and equable looks; and he did not perceive nor suspect the tumult and fever in my mind. Prepared as I was to yield to him with reluctance, and a feeling of hardship, I felt a shock of almost disappointment when I found that nothing was to be asked of me--I sank into the nearest chair and took up the first book I could find to cover my trembling and confusion. The stillness of the room overpowered me--I could hear my heart beating in the silence, and as my eye wandered over all these orderly and ordinary arrangements, and to the calm bright sunshine out of doors, and the shadow of the trees softly waving across the window, I was calmed into quieter expectancy and clearer vision. My father sat in his usual place at his usual studies, with the summer daylight full upon his face, and everything about him arranged with scrupulous propriety and care; if any of his habitual accessories had been disturbed--if he had occupied another seat, or sat in a different attitude, or if I could have detected the slightest sign of faltering or weakness in his manner, I would not have felt so strongly my sudden descent from the heights of terror, anxiety, and expectation, to the everyday level of repose and comfort; but there was no change in his stately person or dress, no perceptible difference in his appearance. He was not old--at this present moment he looked like a man in his prime, handsome, haughty, reserved, and fastidious. As I observed him under the shadow of my book, I felt like a spy watching to detect incipient weakness--was I disappointed that he did not look ill? Was this the man who half an hour ago was sleeping the sleep of exhaustion after a deadly struggle with his malady? I could not believe myself, or Alice--she was mistaken--for it was impossible to reconcile what she told me with what I saw.