George Woodburn often thought of Betty’s quaint remarks long after others had forgotten them, for he found something in them; and in the course of the following spring, after Thorsby’s conversion, he thought of these two occasions. “The harnet fled at me, and fled at me,” said Betty, “like the owd enemy.” “This is just as he seems to have done at Thorsby!” said George to himself. And then the bees worshipping the bough where the queen-bee sat, for a few days, and only for a few, as Betty said. How completely that applied to Thorsby! His career of pulpit eloquence and repentant zeal had been as brief as it had been dazzling. It was like the taking fire of dry furze on a common. It was an all-consuming flame for a brief period, and was gone, leaving a bare and blackened waste. Letty had watched with a sad terror the decrease and disappearance of this impetuous blaze of the soul. For a time there was a transition state in Thorsby, which, to a spectator only concerned to observe the singularities of character, would have been an interesting study. In a morning he would be up as early as three o’clock, would go down into the kitchen, where there was always a raking-coal burning, break it up, and commence reading the Bible aloud, and with a somewhat singing tone, accompanied by an occasional shake of the head, as from some very impressive thought, and often with gushing showers of tears. Before the servants came down, he would return to his bed, and to a sound sleep, which would continue till ten o’clock, or later. Letty, now accustomed to this habit, got a cup of coffee herself on going down, and then waited patiently for her husband’s appearance. He would come down sad and thoughtful, as it seemed, breakfast with few words, and away to his warehouse. At noon he would return all life and gaiety, and in the evening go off to his club. Yes, he was again an associate of his old associates!—the sow had returned to its wallowing in the mire! Yet this did not prevent him being up the following morning, and reading aloud in his Bible with tears and tones of pious feeling. Such an incongruous condition could not last. The different elements of his strange character were in conflict. The religious sentiment was maintaining its last efforts against the levity and love of pleasure in that unstable heart. For awhile Thorsby was the wonder once more of his townsmen, but this time it was the wonder and the scorn. Sad was the heart and the life of poor Letty; sad was the mood of mind in the once happy Woodburn Grange. Thorsby had lost all power over his own actions, yet he had not lost all feeling. Many were the paroxysms of remorse and tears which his wife had to witness, at first with some faint hopes, at last only with anguish and despair. Thorsby avoided being seen in the streets as much as possible, stole by back ways to his warehouse, and at night renewed the orgies of his dissolute club.