Mrs. Ashland, and she only, knew the whole misery of her friend's position, and feared lest, exhausted as she was by mental pain and long watching, and divided between her unextinguished love for Morton, and her abhorrence of the criminal who by name and the letter of the law was her husband, the meeting might put her self-mastery to too painful a proof. She therefore, though with a very evident reluctance, dissuaded Morton from it. "Edith has been taxed already to the farthest limit of her strength. She is not ill, but quite worn and spent. She is almost constantly with her father, who, now, can hardly be said to live, and needs constant care. To see you at this time would agitate her too much." "Can the sight of me still have so much power to move her?" "You know what she is. A feeling once rooted in her mind does not loosen its hold. There are very few who comprehend her. Her character is so balanced and so harmonious, so quiet and noiseless in its movement, that no one suspects the force, and faith, and energy that are in it. It is not in words or in looks that she shows herself. It is in action, in emergencies, that she declares her power over herself and over others." Morton's passion glowed upon him with all its early fervor. "I will tell her what you wish. But her cup is full already, and you can hardly be willing to shake it to overflowing. It is impossible that her father should linger many days more; and when that is over, it will bring her a relief, though she may not think it so, in more ways than one." Morton assented to his friend's reasons, and leaving his farewell for Edith Leslie, mournfully took his leave. CHAPTER LXVIII. Grief and patience, rooted in her both, Mingle their spurs together.--_Cymbeline_. Leslie was dead; beyond the reach of wounds and sorrow; and the only tie which held his daughter to Vinal was at last broken. She left him, as she had promised, and made her abode with Mrs. Ashland, in her cottage by the sea shore. She sat alone at an open window, looking out upon the sea, an illimitable dreariness, waveless and dull as tarnished lead; clouded with sullen mists, but still rocking in long, dead swells with the motion of a past storm. Her thoughts followed on the track of the absent Morton.