Wondering, Ellen went into the sitting-room, and her heart echoed Falkenberg’s words when she saw her mistress. Ellen had come to feel that the most utter breakdown–fever, delirium, or raving–would be better than this prolonged conscious suffering. She could almost have found it in her heart to pray for death or madness to come and relieve her darling from this torture.
‘May he be paid his just wages!’ she kept wishing within herself, ‘measure for measure–not a grain more or less; and he’ll have had about as much as he can endure. I ask no more.’
The end of that long-drawn agony came at last, as come it must. After Falkenberg had gone, Sara began to pace about the room; once or twice the consciousness of what had passed between her and him, crossed her mind, and a vague accompanying idea, which scarcely attained the consistency of a positive intention–that when she was better, and better able to reason, she would tell him that she had made a mistake; that what he bargained for was out of the question; she would do him no such wrong. His threat of leaving her had been the last straw; she had been unable to face the alternative. She could not do without him; for in crises like these we see every day the adage belied that ‘vain is the help of man.’ It is man alone that can sustain and comfort man in such an emergency; it is then that there is brought home to us the utter powerlessness of supernatural aids to touch our woe.
Ellen, in her room, towards morning, heard an abrupt pause in the measured footsteps, and something like a long moaned-out sigh. She hastened to the other room, and found that Sara had at last, dressed as she was, flung herself upon her bed, and lay there motionless.
When Ellen spoke to her she murmured some incoherent words, but it was evident that she did not understand what was said to her.
The woman felt a sensation almost of relief. At last she could take matters into her own hands, and her first step of course was to send for a doctor–a doctor to cure a strange disease. Where are such physicians to be found? and when shall we cease our quest after them? She sent for Falkenberg, too, as he had desired her to do; and she heard what he said to the doctor who had come out of Sara’s room, looking grave. Falkenberg asked him what was the matter–was the case a serious one?
The doctor looked from Rudolf to Ellen, and answered by another question:
‘Has the young lady any relations? If she has, they should be sent for.’
‘I do not know how that may be,’ replied Falkenberg; ‘or whether she would desire her relations to be sent for, even if she were in extremity. But she is my promised wife, and that being the case, I beg you will consider me responsible in every matter that concerns her.’
The doctor–a grave man–bowed, also gravely, and said, that that being the case, he might say that the lady was very dangerously ill, and before deciding upon any measures, he would prefer to consult with his colleague, Dr. Moritz.