'How did you sleep last night, dear?'
'Tolerably well, thank you, for two or three hours.'
'And after that?'
'Oh, then it was the old stupid story. Endless processions of people filing by, as if I were a mummy holding a levée.'
'And that chamber into which you dare not peep—does it still remain?'
'Yes; and myriads of voices high and low telling me to pass in—but they get fainter night by night. Now, when I waken up in the soft light and see Fräulein Hennig's quiet face, I do not any longer feel like a terrified child that covers its head and trembles because of ghost stories it has heard.'
'Ah, that is a great stage. This is your first serious illness. For the first time you know something of the terror of demoralized nerves. But now that you begin to regain tranquillity the worst is over.'
'Do you think so? I am glad to feel so unmoved; but sometimes—I hardly know why—it frightens me a little that all which used to be so much to me seems so incredibly remote.'
'Oh, that is merely brain exhaustion. As you get stronger—as you are "built up," to use Dr. Seemann'a words—the old interests will revive.'
CHAPTER LI.