"Father, I'll do as ye wish. I'll go home wi' ye." He drew her down on her knees beside him, and prayed fervently for mercy and forgiveness for them both. "But my heart was too full to beg," he afterwards said to me. "I could only give God thanks for his infinite mercy in restoring my lost child." They missed the morning train, and had to wait till the evening. In the interval Sarah had stripped off the tawdry ornaments she wore, and plucked a gaudy feather from her hat--pleasant incidents which her father noted. In the middle of the night almost they reached the old cottage in Ashbrook, and both were glad that the darkness hid them from every eye save God's. CHAPTER XX. MAINTAINS THAT FOR THE WRONG SIN-BURDENED MORTAL NO SLEEP IS SO SWEET AS THE LAST LONG SLEEP OF ALL. There was deep joy in Mrs. Thomas Wanless's cottage that night--joy all the deeper for the pain that lay beneath it. Mrs. Wanless was not a demonstrative woman at any time, but that night she embraced her daughter again and again, and held her to her heart with passionate eagerness. Sarah was sad, and after the first momentary flash of delight, shrank back within herself. She went and looked at her child sleeping quietly in its grandmother's bed, but did not kiss or caress it. The joy of the parents was dimmed at sight of this indifference, but when Sarah had retired to rest, Thomas did his best to encourage his wife to hope. "It will soon be all right between mother and child," he prophesied, and this no doubt was their hope. It was long, however, ere they saw any fulfilment of it. In truth, shame took so deep a hold on Sarah's mind that she became a sort of terror to herself. She was so crushed by the past, so utterly incapable of rising out of the darkness that shrouded her mind, that it is probable she would again have fled from her father's roof had she not been prevented by illness. The life of false excitement she had led in London had sapped her constitution, and she had not long returned when her health began to give way. Fits of shivering seized her, then a hacking, dry cough, which could not be dislodged. Her complexion grew transparent, her eye preternaturally bright. She was, in a word, falling into consumption, and in all probability would not live long to endure her misery. This was doubtless the kindest fate that could now befall her, but it was a new grief to her parents when they awoke to consciousness of the fact that this lost one, so lately found again, was slowly vanishing from their sight for ever.