As he was thus speaking, the servants, at a gesture from her Ladyship, quietly stole from the chamber, leaving her alone at his bedside.
“You are too weak for this exertion, Godfrey,” said she, calmly. “Any effort like this is certain to injure you.”
“You think so?” asked he, with the tone of deference that he generally used towards her. “Perhaps you are right, Dora; but how can it be helped?—there is so much to do, such a long way to travel. What a strange confusion is over me! Do you know, Dolly,”—here his voice fell to a mere whisper,—“you'll scarcely credit it; but all the time I have been fancying myself at Cro' Martin, and here we are in—in—what do you call the place?”
“Baden.”
“Yes—yes—but the country?”
“Germany.”
“Ay, to be sure, Germany; hundreds of miles away from home!” Here he raised himself on one arm, and cast a look of searching eagerness through the room. “Is he gone?” whispered he, timidly.
“Of whom are you speaking?” said she.
“Hush, Dolly, hush!” whispered he, still lower. “I promised I 'd not tell any one, even you, of his being here. But I must speak of it—I must—or my brain will turn. He was here—he sat in that very chair—he held my hand within both his own. Poor, poor fellow! how his eyes filled when he saw me! He little knew how changed he himself was!—his hair white as snow, and his eyes so dimmed!”
“This was a dream, Godfrey,—only a dream!”