Sink or Swim? , Volume III by Matilda Charlotte Houstoun

Two more days and nights sped by -- a time passed almost literally by / Honor in tears and fasting -- when the anxiously-looked-for crisis came at / last; came in fear, and passed away in tearful hope, and the joyful news / went forth that John Beacham was out of danger. Out of danger, and / certain (humanly speaking) to walk forth again amongst his fellows; / certain too -- ay, of that there could be no doubt -- that his duty to God / and to his neighbours would be, to the best of his powers, as simply and / faithfully performed by this honest, simple-hearted man as it had been / in the days before sorrow came, and shame had visited his house. Shame, / but not guilt. Ah, in that lay John's best consolation, when, with his / head a little lower than had been his wont, he for the first time, with / languid step and sadly altered face, sauntered in his garden between the / lines of fragrant roses, leaning upon Honor's arm.

They were serious, as well as sad, those two, between whom there had / been so perfect a reconciliation, and on one side a forgiveness so / entire and unqualified. Honor's sweet young face looked older, paler, / and far more thoughtful than of yore. She could not forget, neither / could the chastened man beside her, that through _their_ faults / tribulation had fallen upon the innocent, and that a motherless infant, / a bereaved father, were left to bear witness to the terrible fact that / they had failed, grievously failed, in their duty to God and to their / neighbour. Through all their lives the memory of these calamities would / darken their joys, and cast a cloud even while the sun shone brightest, / and the sky was bluest above their heads. Never again would Honor be the / bright, light-hearted girl who had first won John's love when she played / with the merry children in the woods, laughing and shouting in their / joyous mirth. Never again would he, secure in his home happiness, and / with a conscience not only void of offence towards God and towards man, / but with a heart unburdened by a sense of wrong done to any soul that / lived, wear upon his kindly face the genial smile which gladdened his / many acquaintances, men as well as women, young as well as old, when he / waved them a cordial greeting on his onward way. The zest, the freshness / which makes life a thing to be enjoyed as well as endured, was over for / ever; over, not only for the man verging on middle-age, but for the / woman who, on the very threshold of existence, had looked out on coming / storms, and had learned to dread the distant warning of the tempest.