"My dearest," murmured his wife, nestling closer to him among the heaped-up pillows of his sofa, "it would be too hard, too cruel that you should be thus smitten, if this life were all. But, praised be God, it is not all! There is a bright eternity waiting for us--a long day of rest in the land where there is neither sorrow nor pain." Her husband answered with an impatient sigh. "My dear Dora, I have neither your sweet simplicity nor your pious faith in the letter of an old book," he answered. "This life is so palpable and so painful just now, that I cannot comfort myself by looking beyond it towards a life of which I know nothing." They were at Penmorval. Mrs. Wyllard had established her husband in her own particular sanctum, which was the prettiest room in the house--a spacious airy room on the first floor, with a large Tudor window facing southward, and an oriel in the south-western angle. Julian Wyllard had decorated and furnished this room for his young wife; and all things it contained had been chosen with reference to her tastes and pursuits. It opened into her dressing-room, and beyond the dressing-room there was the chief bedchamber of Penmorval, the chamber of the lord of the manor from time immemorial, the birth-chamber and the death-chamber. Its very spaciousness and grandeur gave to this state apartment an air of gloom, a gloom intensified by the prevailing tints of the tapestry, a series of hunting scenes, executed in a sombre gradation of bluish greens and grayish browns. The elaborately carved oak wardrobes were like monuments in a Gothic cathedral. The bed, with its embroidered velvet hangings, fluted columns, and plumed ornaments, suggested a royal catafalque: while the fireplace, with its sculptured pillars and heavy decoration in black and white marble, recalled the entrance to the Capulets' tomb. Not a room assuredly for the occupation of an invalid--not a room in which to suffer sleepless nights and long hours of dull, wearing pain. This was what Dora thought; and at her order her dressing-room, which was airy and sufficiently spacious, was transformed into a bedroom for Mr. Wyllard, while her morning-room was arranged for his daily occupation. It would be easy to wheel his sofa from one room to the other. All her orders had been telegraphed beforehand, and everything was in its place when the sufferer arrived. "It is a special privilege to be nursed by a good fairy," he said, smiling up at his wife, with that rare smile which had so peculiar a charm in her eyes--the smile of a man who has not the same set graciousness for all comers.