feeling that at any moment Aske might pass beyond even his pity and forgiveness, and he was so afraid of letting any selfish thoughts influence him at that hour that he would not suffer his memory to look back a moment.
About two o'clock in the morning the message for which he had been waiting came. Aske had been conscious; he had recognized his wife; the physicians thought his final recovery was now probable. When Jonathan read the bit of paper a great wave of gratitude came over his heart, and he said, fervently, "Thank God! thank God!" Then he laid it down and stood and looked at it He had not yet got over the miracle of his own changed feelings. And another miracle was, that he found it difficult to recall that terrible interval during which passion had been his master instead of his slave; his memory passed it at a bound, and lingered rather among the sunshiny days of Eleanor's courtship, days in which he had thought there never was a young man so kind, and withal so prudent in his affairs and positions, as Anthony Aske.
His next thought was, "Poor Eleanor!" And, indeed, Eleanor needed his sympathy. She had had to go through hours of sore trial,
