Her demand to have her baby--"Oh, mother, bring me my baby! I shall die if you do not!" and the answer, "Your baby is in heaven!"-- sent the feeble life-currents back again upon her heart.

There was another long period of oblivion, out of which she came very slowly, her mind almost as much a blank as the mind of a child.
She had to learn again the names of things, and to be taught their use.
It was touching to see the untiring devotion of her father, and the pleasure he took in every new evidence of mental growth.

He went over the alphabet with her, letter by letter, many times each day, encouraging her and holding her thought down to the unintelligible signs with a patient tenderness sad yet beautiful to see; and when she began to combine letters into words, and at last to put words together, his delight was unbounded.
Very slowly went on the new process of mental growth, and it was months before thought began to reach out beyond the little world that lay just around her.
Meanwhile, Edith's husband had been brought to trial for forgery, convicted and sentenced to the State's prison for a term of years.

His partner came forward as the chief witness, swearing that he had believed the notes genuine, the firm having several times had the use of Mr.
Dinneford's paper, drawn to the order of Granger.
Ere the day of trial came the poor young man was nearly broken-hearted.
Public disgrace like this, added to the terrible private wrongs he was suffering, was more than he had the moral strength to bear.

Utterly repudiated by his wife's family, and not even permitted to see Edith, he only knew that she was very ill.