"I wish you would be reasonable," she said, "and do what your friends ask of you. This confinement is wearing us both out; it will be the death of me, and you will be to blame."
"The sooner the better," I rejoined, heartlessly.
"Ah, Miss Monfort, you have no better friend than I am, perhaps, but you are ungrateful."
"I hope not; but some things of late have shaken, I confess, what little faith I had in you; this confiscation of my property is one of them."
"You know why this is done; I need not explain, but I shall trust you fearlessly in Dinah's society in future. I believe you have no other treasure to bribe her with," and, smiling in her sardonic way, she turned and limped to her bedroom, which it had cost her so great an effort to leave. Her groans and moans during the remainder of the evening were piteous, and Dinah could do nothing to comfort her. A sudden determination possessed me. My own system recuperated rapidly, and after a nervous headache I was always conscious of renewed vital power and of keener sensations. I would try the experiment once more—hazarded under circumstances so different that it made me tremulous but to think of the vast abyss between my now and then—and essay, to magnetize Mrs. Clayton.
She could not sleep naturally, and she feared evidently to avail herself of opiates, lest in her heavy slumber, perhaps, I should escape. In her normal condition this seemed impossible, for she slept habitually as lightly as a cat, or bird upon its perch, yet lying, and with her key beneath her head (never dreaming of other outlet) she felt at ease. I had already learned that since her illness there were additional precautions taken to insure my safety, and, as she had alleged, her own fidelity.
The Dragon was watched in turn by a Cerberus—no other than the long-trusted colored coachman of Basil Bainrothe, of whom mention has been made far back in these pages.
Thus secure and secured, Mrs. Clayton might have surrendered herself to slumber with all serenity, one would suppose, had it not absolutely refused to visit her eyelids, and the suggestion of an opiate, on my part, was received for some reason in dumb derision.
I went to her at last, and said: "Mrs. Clayton, I hear you groaning grievously, and I fancy I could relieve you. The laying on of hands is a sort of gift of mine; let me try by such means to ease your pain."
"Thank you, Miss Monfort," very dryly, "you are very kind, indeed, but I don't think you can relieve me. I have excruciating neuralgia in my eyebones and temples, and my hands are cramped again. Dinah has been rubbing, without bettering them, for the last half hour."