“I did tell him—and then he put me from his bosom as if I had been a leper, with a cry of rage, bitter rage on the lips that had never till then known aught but blessings; not against me—no, he could never have denounced me—but on Murray. Then I bethought me of the evil that might follow. I arose from the floor and fell before him, where he stood, and tried to plead and to call back all I had said. He lifted me again in his arms, though I felt a tremor run through his whole frame as he did so; he told me to be comforted, said many soothing words, and promised never to reproach me again, but he said nothing of him, and when I again strove to plead in his defence he put me sternly away. Then I went wholly mad.

“I can never describe the cold, hopeless struggle of my heart to retain the delusions which haunted my insane moments when my intellect began to resume its functions. It seemed as if some cruel spirit were gradually tightening the bonds of earth about me, and ruthlessly dragging me back to reason, while my spirit clung with intense longing to its own wild ideal.

“It was a sad, sad night to me when that star arose in the sky and sent its pure beams down to the bosom of my acacia, and I knew that the clear orb would henceforth be to me only a star—that the realms which I had located in its distant bosom were but the dream of a diseased fancy that would return no more with its beautiful and vivid faith which had no power to reason or doubt.

“But we can force the fantasies of a mind no more than the affections of the heart. My disease left me; then the passions and aspirations of my old nature started up, one after another, like marble statues over which a midnight blackness had fallen. And there in the midst, more firmly established than ever, his image remained—his name, his being, and the sad history of my own sufferings had, for one whole year, been to me but as an indefinite and painful dream. But sorrow and insanity itself had failed to uproot the love which had led to such misery. Can I be blamed that I prayed for insensibility again?”

CHAPTER IX
THE LOST YEAR

“Varnham had watched me for one year as a mother guards her wayward child. But the sudden illness of a near relative forced him from his guardianship. In my wildest moments I had always been gentle and submissive, but I was told that he left me with much reluctance to the care of my own maid, the housekeeper, and my medical attendant. They loved me, and he knew that with them I should be safe. When I began to question them of what had passed during my confinement, they appeared surprised by the quietness and regularity of my speech, but were ready to convince themselves that it was only one of the fitful appearances of insanity which had often deceived them during my illness. They, however, answered me frankly and with the respect which Varnham had ever enjoined upon them, even when he supposed that I could neither understand nor resent indignity.

“They told me that on the night of my arrival at Ashton they were all summoned from their beds by a violent ringing of the library bell; when they entered, my husband was forcibly holding me in his arms, though he was deadly pale and trembling so violently that the effort seemed too much for his strength. At first they dared not attempt to assist him; there was something so terrible in my shrieks and wild efforts to free myself that they were appalled. It was not till I had exhausted my strength, and lay breathless and faintly struggling on his bosom that they ventured to approach.

“I must have been a fearful sight, as they described me, with the white foam swelling to my lips, my face flushed, my eyes vivid with fever, and both hands clenched wildly in the long hair which fell over my husband’s arms and bosom, matted with the jewels which I had worn at Murray’s wedding. At every fresh effort I made to extricate myself, some of these gems broke loose, flashed to the floor and were trampled beneath the feet of my servants, for everything was unheeded in the panic which my sudden frenzy had created.

“‘Oh! it was an awful scene!’ exclaimed the old housekeeper, breaking off her description and removing the glasses from her tearful eyes as she spoke. ‘I was frightened when I looked at you, but when my master lifted his face, and the light lay full upon it, my heart swelled, and I began to cry like a child. There was something in his look—I cannot tell what it was—something that made me hold my breath with awe, yet sent the tears to my eyes. I forgot you when I looked at him.

“‘We carried you away to this chamber and when we laid you on the bed you laughed and sung in a wild, shrill voice that made the blood grow cold in my veins. I have never heard a sound so painful and thrilling as your cries were that night. For many hours you raved about some terrible deed that was to be done, and wildly begged that there might be no murder. Then you would start up and extend your arms in a pleading, earnest way to my master, and would entreat him with wild and touching eloquence to let you die—to imprison you in some cold, drear place where you would never see him again, but not to wound you so cruelly with his eyes.