Despard looked at her earnestly. “Do you ask me such a question? It is a story so full of anguish that the heart might break out of pure sympathy, but what words could be found? I have nothing to say. I am speechless. My God! what horror thou dost permit!”
“But something must be done,” said Mrs. Thornton, impetuously.
“Yes,” said Despard, slowly, “but what? If we could reach our hands over the grave and bring back those who have passed away, then the soul of Edith might find peace; but now—now—we can give her no peace. She only wishes to die. Yet something must be done, and the first thing is to find Louis Brandon. I will start for London to-night. I will go and seek him, not for Edith’s sake but for his own, that I may save one at least of this family. For her there is no comfort. Our efforts are useless there. If we could give her the greatest earthly happiness it would be poor and mean, and still she would sigh after that starry companionship from which her soul has been withdrawn.”
“Then you believe it.”
“Don’t you?”
“Of course; but I did not know that you would.”
“Why not? and if I did not believe it this at least would be plain, that she herself believes it. And even if it be a hallucination, it is a sublime one, and so vivid that it is the same to her as a reality. Let it be only a dream that has taken place—still that dream has made all other things dim, indistinct, and indifferent to her.”
“No one but you would read Paolo’s diary without thinking him insane.”
Despard smiled. “Even that would be nothing to me. Some people think that a great genius must be insane.
‘Great wits are sure to madness near allied,’