“None, sir, in America. There are some cousins in Scotland, but she has never seen them, and never will.”
“Where are the members of her husband’s family?”
A visible shudder crept over that portion of the woman’s body which was not paralyzed, and her face grew dark and stern.
“He was an orphan.”
“His loss seems to have had a terrible effect upon Mrs. Gerome, and rendered her bitter and hopeless.”
“How hopeless, none but she and I and the God above us know. Once she was the meekest, sweetest spirit, that ever gladdened a nurse’s heart, and I thought the world was blessed by her coming into it; but now she is sacrilegious and scoffing, and almost dares the Lord’s judgments. Dr. Grey, it would nearly freeze your blood to hear her sometimes. Poor thing! she will have no companions, and so has a habit of talking to herself, and I often hear her arguing with the Almighty about her life, and the trouble He allowed to fall into it. Last night she was walking there under my window, begging God to take her out of the world before I die. Begging, did I say? Nay,—demanding. My precious, pretty bairn!”
“Elsie, be candid with me. Is not Mrs. Gerome partially deranged?”
She struggled violently to raise herself, but failing, her head fell back, and she lifted her finger angrily.
“No more deranged than you or I. That is a vile slander of busybodies whom she will not receive, and who take it for granted that no lady in her sound senses would refuse the privilege of gossiping with them. She is as sane as any one, though there is an unnatural appearance about her, and if her heart was only as sound as her head I could die easily. They started the report of craziness long, long ago, in order to get hold of her fortune; but it was too infamous a scheme to succeed.”