His wife!--was this his cold, stately wife who knelt so fondly beside him? Were those eyes--shining with love, wet with tears--the cold blue eyes that had so often frozen all demonstrations of affection? Was that face, full of joyful relief and emotion, the marble countenance that had never smiled lovingly on him since he had first beheld it? No!--it could not be Alizon--it was some deceptive vision of the brain, painting what might have been and yet---- She saw his state of bewilderment, and, bending over, kissed him tenderly.
"It is I--your wife!--wife not in name only, but in love and trust."
A smile of joy flitted across his worn face, and he strove to put out one weak hand.
"Forgive," he said faintly, "forgive."
"It is I who should ask forgiveness," she replied in a broken voice; "I was harsh and cold, my dearest, and I do ask your forgiveness. Hush do not say a word--you are very weak, and must not talk. Let me nurse you back to health again, and then I will strive to be a better wife to you than I have hitherto been."
He said nothing, but lay on his pillows, with eyes shining with love, a contented smile on his lips, and fell asleep, still holding his wife's hand in his own.
After this he mended quickly, for with the return of Alizon's affection the desire of life had come back, and each day he grew stronger because the vexed brain was now at rest, and the love of his wife was a better medicine than any drugs of the doctor.
"You see," said Storge to Eustace on leaving the chamber one day when Guy had been pronounced convalescent, "what has cured him is not my medicines, but his wife's affection. Ah, Shakespeare was a wise man when he said, 'Thou canst not minister unto a mind diseased.' Love is the only cure there."
"Lucky mind to have such a cure," replied Gartney with a sigh; "some minds have to bear their diseases till the end of life with no chance of being mended."
Storge said nothing, but he looked at him curiously, for he half guessed the real state of the case, and sincerely pitied Eustace for his unhappy passion.