Maltravers waited in surprise for her recovery.
"I beg pardon, sir,—I was thinking of days long past; and—but I wished to ask whether, when I lay in your hall, almost insensible, any one besides yourself and your servants were present?—-or was it"—added the woman, with a shudder—"was it the dead?"
"I remember," said Maltravers, much struck and interested in her question and manner, "that a lady was present."
"It is so! it is so!" cried the woman, half rising and clasping her hands. "And she passed by this cottage a little time ago; her veil was thrown aside as she turned that fair young face towards the cottage. Her name, sir,—oh, what is her name? It was the same—the same face that shone across me in that hour of pain! I did not dream! I was not mad!"
"Compose yourself; you could never, I think, have seen that lady before. Her name is Cameron."
"Cameron—Cameron!" The woman shook her head mournfully. "No; that name is strange to me. And her mother, sir,—she is dead?"
"No; her mother lives."
A shade came over the face of the sufferer; and she said, after a pause,—
"My eyes deceive me then, sir; and, indeed, I feel that my head is touched, and I wander sometimes. But the likeness was so great; yet that young lady is even lovelier!"
"Likenesses are very deceitful and very capricious, and depend more on fancy than reality. One person discovers a likeness between faces most dissimilar,—a likeness invisible to others. But who does Miss Cameron resemble?"