She was always beautiful, but to-day there was a helpless, hopeless abandonment in her listless demeanor, that appealed successfully to the manly tenderness and chivalry of his nature; and into his strong, true, noble soul, came a longing to cheer, and guide, and redeem this strange, desolate woman, whose personal loveliness would have made her regnant over the gay circles of fashionable life, yet whose existence was more lonely than that of an eaglet in some mountain eyrie.
Rising, he leaned against the easel and looked down into the colorless face that possessed such a wondrous charm for him.
“Mrs. Gerome, for natures diseased like yours, the only remedy, the only cure, is earnest, vigorous labor; and the regimen you really require is mournfully at variance with your present habits and modes of thought.”
“I do labor incessantly; more indefatigably than any plowman, or mason, or carpenter. Your prescription has been thoroughly tested, and found worthless, as an antidote to my malady,—hopelessness.”
“Unfortunately the labor has all been mental; heart and soul have stood aloof, while the brain almost wore itself out. This canvas is destroying you; your creations are too rapid, too exhausting.”
“Dr. Grey, you grievously misapprehend the whole matter, for my work reminds me of what Canova once said of West’s pictures, ‘He groups; he does not compose.’”
Dr. Grey put his hand on her wrist, and counted the rapid, feeble, irregular pulse.
She made an effort to throw off his fingers, but they clung tenaciously to the polished arm.
“How many hours do you sleep, during the twenty-four?”
“Sometimes three, occasionally one, frequently none.”