Intensely bitter thoughts flocked in along with this. The hand she had clasped so lately, and the way it had clasped her; a longing that would hardly be gainsaid for the touch of it again. Was she forgetting that? was she trying to loosen that bond? She paused, leaning back against the wall, holding her hands tight. But even with the answer the other cry came up: the world was all reeling under her feet,—she _must_ have something that would stand. For the time everything else gave way. It was true, this trouble might pass,—then others would come: others from which even Dane could not shield her. Already, twice in her little life, twice in three months, had such a crisis come. Mrs. Bywank got no sight of her that night; only gentle answers to enquiries through the closed door; and Hazel lighted her study lamp, and opening her Bible at the ninety-first psalm, and setting it up before her in the great easy chair, knelt down before it and laid her head down too. No need to go over the printed words,—there was not one of them she did not know. But was there anything there to help? She went them over to herself, verse by verse, and verse after verse was not for her. It was Dane who had taken that stand, who was leading that life; these promises were all to him. No arrow of darkness was his fear—she knew that well: no pestilence walking at his side could alarm _him_. But as she went on, half triumphantly at first, with the detail of his faith and his security, the vision of his danger come too; and a long restless fit of pain ended all study for that time. Ended itself at last in sleep,—and the dreams of what was about him, and thoughts of what he was about, gave no token of their presence but a sob or a sigh, until the few remaining hours of the night swept by, and the morning broke. As I said somewhere else, the new day is often good for uncertainties. The foolish fears, the needless alarms, the whole buzzing troop of fidgets that come out in the darkness, go back to their swamps and hiding places when the day has fairly come. They cannot make head against the wholesome freshness of the morning wind. Then painted hopes and lace-winged fancies flit out to take their place: things certainly are better, or they will be better, or they never have been bad. But certainties are another matter. The new burdens, laid down in sleep, but now to be taken up, and adjusted, and borne on through all the ins and outs of the coming day. Morning does nothing for _them_, but fasten them on securely, with a heavy hand.