Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/329

Rh around, before Ethel joined him. She came down the same winding path, through the wilderness, by which Henrietta had joined them the night before she went to London. "You look pale, dearest," said Norbourne; "these daily visits to Lady Marchmont, in her wretched state, are too much for you." "Not so," replied Ethel: "you would not, I am sure, wish me to shrink from what I hold to be a duty, though a painful one. Poor Henrietta has no friend in the world but myself. Hopeless as her madness is, though she knows me not, my presence soothes her; and with me she is gentle as a child." "Incurable insanity!" exclaimed Norbourne, "violent or melancholy, it is an awful visitation on one so young, so beautiful, and so gifted!" "God grant," said Ethel, "that her sufferings in this world may be her atonement in the next. As far as human skill can say, years, long years, are before her. To us, Norbourne, she will be as a sister, is it not so?" Her husband's only answer was to clasp still closer the hand that he held in his. "You