"I knew you were mistaken, but I examined to satisfy your mind. No, she still lies in a lethargy, and will lie in that comatose condition until after noon. Then Dr. Pemberton will be here, and she will revive."
"That seizure was very dreadful, but I saw no foam on her lips like most epileptics, and I watched narrowly."
"There are modifications of the disease, Claude; hers is of a passive kind, with very few or no convulsive struggles—more like syncope. Had you not better retire now?"
"Still, it is epilepsy? No, do not banish me yet."
"That is what the doctors call it, I believe, Claude. Dr. Pemberton is too guarded or politic, one or the other—all Quakers are, you know—to give it a name, however. Dr. Physick told papa what it was very plainly, years ago."
"Ah I he was good authority, certainly a great physician and a philosopher as well; but, Evelyn, it is very awful," with a groan, and perhaps a shudder. "Very hard to get over or to bear."
"Yes, and the worst of it is it will increase with age, and the end is so deplorable—idiocy or madness, you know, invariably. Early death is desirable for Miriam. Her best friends should not wish to see her life prolonged. It is an inheritance, probably. Her mother died of some inscrutable incurable disease, I suppose like this."
"O God! O God! it is almost more than I can stand."
I heard him pacing the room slowly up and down, and my impulse was to part the curtains, to call him to me and comfort him, but I could not; I was too weak even to speak as yet, and bound as with a spell, a nightmare.
A whirl of vivid joy passed through me like an electric flash, however, as I recognized in his disquietude the strength of his affection. Evelyn's malignant cruelty and falsehood were lost sight of in the bliss of this conviction; yet my triumph was but brief.