Beatrix took both off and carried them to her friend, saying "Here is the key of a box that has come for you, and here is a letter, dear Sybil, from your husband, I suppose; will you read it?"
Sybil opened the letter, gazed at it with dreamy eyes, and followed the lines with her glances, but without taking in their meaning.
Sad enough this would have seemed to Miss Pendleton at any other time; but now, every evidence of her friend's failing mind was welcome to her, and to all who loved the unhappy young wife.
"Shall I read it for you, dear?" inquired Beatrix, tenderly, taking the letter from her hand.
"Yes, read it," answered Sybil, rousing herself, for an instant, to some little interest in the matter, and then sinking back into indifference.
Beatrix read aloud. The letter was only an earnestly affectionate greeting from the husband to the wife, telling her that he had sent her a box of needful articles, and that he himself would come to see her as soon as the doors should be opened to visitors. It was a cautiously written letter, so worded as to humor her hallucination, in case she should still imagine herself to be in a country house instead of the county prison.
As Beatrix ended each sentence, she looked around to see if Sybil was listening.
Ah! no; after the first few lines had been read, her attention wandered, and at the end of the note she astonished the reader, by saying:
"I am very thirsty, Beatrix."
"Then, dear, let me help you to rise and dress; and you shall have some tea. They are rough people we are stopping with, so I requested them to bring our breakfast up here," said Miss Pendleton, artfully, and laying aside the note.