The knolling of the heavy bell grows softer. The paroxysm passes.
Religion, the early refuge of the sex--the early refuge, too, of the
higher types of the masculine sex--this solace has lit the taper of
hope, the taper of hope that emits the brighter ray.

Esther Lockwin will meet her lord again. She will dwell with him where
the clouds of pride and ambition do not obscure the path of duty.

She who a half hour ago could not live on must now live at all cost.
She has other labors. She must visit the portrait painter's to-day.
She would that the gifted orator might be portrayed as standing before
the immense audiences which used to greet his voice, but it cannot be
done. She must be contented with the posthumous portraits which
forever gratify and disturb the lovers of the dead.

It is a day's labor done. The portrait will be praised on all hands,
but it has not come without previous failures and despairs.

To return to the house out of which the light has gone--how Esther
Lockwin dreads that nightly torment! Shall she linger at the parental
home? Is it not the bitterer to feel that here the selfish life grew
to the full? Is it not worse than sorrow to discover in this abode the
same influences of estrangement? What is David Lockwin in the old home?

A dead man, to be forgotten as soon as possible!

No! no! Better to enter the door where the white arm reached out for
the message of blackness. Better to go up and down the stairs
searching for David, listening for Davy's organ--better to fling one's
self on the couch, abandoning all to the tempest of regret and