“Oh, no care, no pains—nothing that money—nothing that love can do, shall be wanting! There is hope?”
“I dare not say there is much hope in this instance. This atrophy is a very unfavorable thing—all our hope is in being able to save the digestive functions. I have left a prescription, with written directions, above stairs.” The doctor took his hat, and saying that he would see the invalid again in the afternoon, departed.
“All alike! all alike! They sway from right to left, raising one’s hopes, and then rousing their fears! He lies! he lies! It is not so! she is in no danger! Great God she must not die! she shall not!” So unjustly, wildly, sinfully Frank Fairfax talked, walking distractedly up and down the floor, convulsed by grief, remorse and fear for her he loved so strongly, and felt he had wronged so greatly. He dared not seek her bedside now in his excited state—he rushed into his library, locked the door, and gave himself up to all the power of remorse.
In the afternoon he sought the sick room again. And the deep, sweet peace that pervaded the apartment fell like a soothing spell upon his excited nerves. The front windows were open, for the day was very fine, and the fresh air and the sunshine came in together, with the cheerful view of the expanse of water, and the wooded hills across James River. The coolness of the air was sufficiently tempered by a glowing coal fire in the grate. Zuleime lay raised up with pillows on the bed, and upon the counterpane by her sat her little girl. The face of the youthful mother seemed as soft, as feeble, and as free of care and sorrow as that of the infant herself. On seeing Frank enter, she smiled a gentle, pleased, childish smile, and feebly moved her hand towards him. He went to her, at first successfully repressing all his strong emotions, and kissed her very gently, but then sank upon his knees, and dropping his face upon her hand, burst into tears, and wept passionately. Her other hand wandered playfully through his curls, and she said, gently—
“Don’t weep, Frank, please don’t—indeed I am happy—it is so nice to be here—don’t weep.”
But when men weep and sob, it is no passing shower, like the easily shed tears of women, but a great gust, shaking all the nature. So it was a long time before Frank mastered his emotion. When he recovered his composure, and arose and sat by her side and looked at her, he found that the hectic fever burned crimson on her cheeks, and that her brilliant eyes wandered about deliriously. And he knew that he had harmed her again. And soon she began to talk at random, babbling childishly, delightfully, about White Cliffs, and the forest walks, and the garden. And she addressed her father and sister, as if they were present. And very lovingly she spoke to Catherine; or, coming nearer to the present moment, talked with Ida about her feminine shrinking from appearing upon the stage. Frank listened in the deepest trouble, and in the wandering of her mind he learned much that had transpired at White Cliffs, a great deal that had occurred since her flight thence, and all that he ought to have known.
When the physician arrived in the evening, he instituted strict inquiries, and discovered the cause of her high fever. Then he rebuked the indiscretion of her friends, and leaving fresh prescriptions, with peremptory orders that the deepest quiet should be preserved, departed. Her fever unabated raged all night. In the morning it went off.
Captain Fairfax would not permit himself to enter her room again until he had obtained the power of perfect self-control. At about eleven o’clock he went in. The crimson curtains of the windows were drawn aside, and the room was light and cheerful. The white muslin drapery of the bedstead was festooned, and revealed the fair invalid reclining there, wan, placid, child-like as ever. She welcomed her husband with the same soft, faint smile. And he went and sat by her side, and crushing down all strong emotions, took her hand, and spoke to her calmly and pleasantly, inquiring how she felt.
“So well—it is so nice to be here,” she answered simply. And she lay there looking at him contentedly, smiling softly, answering vaguely when he spoke to her; but never asking any question; or making any comment; or volunteering any speech whatever. This pained him more than all—for he knew that mind as well as body was sinking—lapsing away into a sort of dreamy, happy fatuity. And all attempts to rouse her from that state only threw her into fever, and often into delirium.
One day, with a view to interest without exciting her, he inquired—