“Extraordinary, most extraordinary!” exclaimed the doctor; “do you think that he was in a fit?”
“Something like it, I suppose, for Oscar had to beraised, like a dead weight, and carried into the drawing-room, which we had just left, and laid on the sofa. Of course we sent at once for the nearest medical man, who bled him at once.”
“That looked like a fit,” observed Pinfold. “Did the bleeding soon bring him to himself?”
“Yes; Oscar awoke, but it was a terrible awaking. I do not like to speak, even to think of that fearful night and the painful days which followed.” Io’s voice was choked by a sob, and tear-drops forced their way between the slender fingers which concealed the upper part of her face.
“I want to know the symptoms of the disease;—I suppose that you helped to nurse him. Was Coldstream like one suffering from brain-fever?” asked the doctor.
“He would not let me nurse him,” murmured Io, in an almost inaudible voice; “he could not endure to have me near him—that was the worst trial of all.”
Dr. Pinfold looked exceedingly grave; his experience told him that this symptom was of a very alarming nature. As a medical man, he knew that hatred shown towards the very being once most tenderly loved is a not unfrequent sign of madness.
“My poor child!” said Dr. Pinfold, as he laid his hand gently on the soft auburn ringlets of the young head drooping beside him; “how long did this painful phase of the malady last?”
“It seemed to me for ages,” said Io, “but I believe for not many days. I used to wander in misery up and down the passage into which opened the door which I dared not enter. My mother, herself suffering from a recent bereavement, nursed my Oscar. Everything that could possibly excite or distress him was kept from him. He was not told of the death in our family; nor of the breaking of the bank in which all our small property had been lodged, so that, except my mother’s trifling pension, absolutely nothing remained. Oscar knew not of our trouble, our poverty. He never asked questions; he scarcely ever uttered a word.”
“Madness,” said the doctor to himself, then he asked the question aloud, “What broke this spell of silence?”