The woman continued, with calm, regular breathings, to sleep for several hours. The dusk of evening had now closed in, and yet her patient guardian sat silently watching her motionless figure. A long and serene self-communion had gradually restored the excellent doctor to his ordinary equanimity, and he now, with untiring vigilance, awaited the changes that might supervene in the condition of the patient.
After all his thinking on the subject, he found himself now no nearer comprehending the cause of the late unwonted disturbance of his habitual serenity than at the beginning. He had dealt harshly with himself, in endeavoring to account for it, and never dreamed of reproaching the feeble and wretched being before him, as in any degree the conscious agent of what he considered a weakness unpardonable in himself.
With the natural proclivity of generous souls towards the extremes, he had, in the plenitude of his self-reproach, proceeded to exalt the sleeping woman into an earth-visiting angel with wounded wings, the spotless purity of which the breath of his darkened thought had soiled. The poor, good-hearted doctor!
The silence of the room was now broken by a low exclamation of fright, accompanied by a slight movement of the patient. The doctor sprang forward softly to the bedside.
“Who?—what?—where am I? What has been happening?” asked the woman, with an expression of bewilderment and alarm.
“Nothing! nothing, my dear madam! I am here—you are safe—but you must not talk.”
“Where is he? is he gone?” she persisted in a wild, terrified manner.
“Yes, he is gone. He shall not come back to disturb you again. You must be quiet now, and get well. Please be calm, and trust in me.”
“Trust in thee?” said the patient, in a voice which had instantly lost its vague tone. “Trust in thee, thou minister of light, who hast come to my darkened pillow, to my bloody death-bed, to console me!” and here she clutched his hand. “Trust thee—I would trust thee as I trust God!” and she pressed his hand to her heart.
“You must be silent, madam,” urged the physician, endeavoring to extricate his imprisoned hand, for he felt strange tinglings along his veins, which alarmed his now penitent and vigilant spirit. She only shook her head, and clung with yet greater tenacity to his hand, and then, first raising it to her lips with a reverential kiss, she placed it upon the top of her head, with the palm outstretched, and signified her desire that he should keep it there, with a smile of entire beatitude. The doctor barely knew enough of mesmeric manipulations, to understand that this laying-on of hands was commonly resorted to among the believers in the science, as a remedy for nervous headache. He could see no harm in the innocent formula, if it assisted the imagination in throwing off pain, and he very willingly humored his poor patient, in permitting his hand to remain there.