In less than a week Mr. Tryan was settled at Holly¹ Mount, and there was not one of his many attached hearers who did not sincerely rejoice at the event.  
The autumn that year was bright and warm, and at the beginning of October, Mr. Walsh, the new curate, came. The mild weather, the relaxation² from excessive work, and perhaps another benignant influence, had for a few weeks a visibly favourable³ effect on Mr. Tryan. At least he began to feel new hopes, which sometimes took the guise⁴ of new strength. He thought of the cases in which consumption patients remain nearly stationary⁵ for years, without suffering so as to make their life burdensome to themselves or to others; and he began to struggle with a longing⁶ that it might be so with him. He struggled with it, because he felt it to be an indication that earthly affection was beginning to have too strong a hold on him, and he prayed earnestly for more perfect submission⁷, and for a more absorbing delight in the Divine Presence as the chief good. He was conscious that he did not wish for prolonged life solely⁸ that he might reclaim⁹ the wanderers and sustain the feeble: he was conscious of a new yearning¹⁰ for those pure human joys which he had voluntarily and determinedly¹¹ banished¹² from his life—for a draught¹³ of that deep affection from which he had been cut off by a dark chasm¹⁴ of remorse¹⁵. For now, that affection was within his reach; he saw it there, like a palm-shadowed well in the desert; he could not desire to die in sight of it.
 
And so the autumn rolled gently by in its ‘calm decay’. Until November, Mr. Tryan continued to preach occasionally, to ride about visiting his flock, and to look in at his schools: but his growing satisfaction in Mr. Walsh as his successor saved him from too eager exertion¹⁶ and from worrying anxieties. Janet was with him a great deal now, for she saw that he liked her to read to him in the lengthening¹⁷ evenings, and it became the rule for her and her mother to have tea at Holly Mount, where, with Mrs. Pettifer, and sometimes another friend or two, they brought Mr. Tryan the unaccustomed enjoyment¹⁸ of companionship by his own fireside.
 
Janet did not share his new hopes, for she was not only in the habit of hearing Mr. Pratt’s opinion that Mr. Tryan could hardly stand out through the winter, but she also knew that it was shared by Dr Madely of Rotherby, whom, at her request, he had consented to call in. It was not necessary or desirable to tell Mr. Tryan what was revealed by the stethoscope, but Janet knew the worst.
 
She felt no rebellion under this prospect¹⁹ of bereavement²⁰, but rather a quiet submissive sorrow. Gratitude²¹ that his influence and guidance had been given her, even if only for a little while—gratitude that she was permitted to be with him, to take a deeper and deeper impress from daily communion with him, to be something to him in these last months of his life, was so strong in her that it almost silenced regret. Janet had lived through the great tragedy of woman’s life. Her keenest personal emotions had been poured forth²² in her early love—her wounded affection with its years of anguish—her agony of unavailing pity over t............