Dahlia looked at the window-blinds and at the candlelight.  The little which had been spoken between her and her sister in such a chasm of time, gave a terrible swiftness to the hours.  Half shrieking, she dropped her head in Rhoda’s lap.  Rhoda, thinking that with this demonstration she renounced the project finally, prepared to say what she had to say, and to yield.  But, as was natural after a paroxysm of weakness, Dahlia’s frenzy left no courage behind it.

Dahlia said, as she swept her brows, “I am still subject to nervous attacks.”

“They will soon leave you,” said Rhoda, nursing her hand.

Dahlia contracted her lips.  “Is father very unforgiving to women?”

“Poor father!” Rhoda interjected for answer, and Dahlia’s frame was taken with a convulsion.

“Where shall I see him to-morrow?” she asked; and, glancing from the beamless candle to the window-blinds “Oh! it’s day.  Why didn’t I sleep!  It’s day! where am I to see him?”

“At Robert’s lodgings.  We all go there.”

“We all go?—­he goes?”

“Your husband will lead you there.”

“My heaven! my heaven!  I wish you had known what this is, a little—­just a little.”

“I do know that it is a good and precious thing to do right,” said Rhoda.

“If you had only had an affection, dear!  Oh I how ungrateful I am to you.”

“It is only, darling, that I seem unkind to you,” said Rhoda.

“You think I must do this?  Must?  Why?”

“Why?” Rhoda pressed her fingers.  “Why, when you were ill, did you not write to me, that I might have come to you?”

“I was ashamed,” said Dahlia.

“You shall not be ashamed any more, my sister.”

Dahlia seized the window-blind with her trembling finger-tips, and looked out on the day.  As if it had smitten her eyeballs, she covered her face, giving dry sobs.

“Oh!  I wish—­I wish you had known what this is.  Must I do it?  His face!  Dear, I am very sorry to distress you.  Must I do it?  The doctor says I am so strong that nothing will break in me, and that I must live, if I am not killed.  But, if I might only be a servant in father’s house—­I would give all my love to a little bed of flowers.”

“Father has no home now,” said Rhoda.

“I know—­I know.  I am ready.  I will submit, and then father will not be ashamed to remain at the Farm.  I am ready.  Dear, I am ready.  Rhoda, I am ready.  It is not much.”  She blew the candle out.  “See.  No one will do that for me.  We are not to live for ourselves.  I have done wrong, and I am going to be humble; yes, I am.  I never was when I was happy, and that proves I had no right to be happy.  All I ask is for another night with you.  Why did we not lie down together and sleep?  We can’t sleep now—­it’s day.”

“Come and lie down with me for a few hours, my darling,” said Rhoda.

While she was speaking, Dahlia drew the window-blind aside, to look out once more upon the vacant, inexplicable daylight, and looked, and then her head bent like the first thrust forward of a hawk’s sighting quarry; she spun round, her raised arms making a cramped, clapping motion.