Mary was carried to her own room, where she came to herself without agitation or apparent disturbance, asking only “Where am I?” when she recovered her consciousness as she looked vaguely round, and requiring to have it explained to her that she was at the Park and not at her own house, which for the moment seemed the only thing that perplexed her. Agnes, in high excitement, hoping and fearing she knew not what, but something at least which should change and reconstitute life, watched her with an anxiety scarcely more strong than the disappointment with which she became aware that nothing was going to happen. Towards night Mary informed her sister that she had been dreaming a very strange dream, something about drinking toasts, “and there was one to my dear old lord. I think it must have been Duke’s birthday party that was in my head,” she said. Agnes did not venture to inquire further, or to suggest that Duke’s party was a reality and not a dream; but trembling with anxiety, with eagerness, with deep disappointment, had to compel herself to silence and allow her sister to rest. There is a period at which we all arrive in our deepest troubles, when we shrink from effort, when even to try to set matters right becomes too much, and to remain quiet always, to ignore one’s misery, seems the best. Agnes had come to this point. Even her prayers made her heart sick. She had waited so long and nothing had come--perhaps to leave off, to try no more, to be still was after all the best.