Then at another period of that long struggle between life and death, reason and unreason, she had a ghastly vision of two children, squatting on each side of her bed, one living, the other dead, a grisly child with throat cut from ear to ear. Again and again she implored them to take away those babies—the dead child whose horrid aspect froze her blood—the living child that grinned and made faces at her.
Once and once only during that season of delirium the elder of her nurses carried the baby to her bedside, the tiny form in snowy cambric and lace, a little roseate face, on which the first glimmer of intelligence was already dawning, sweet blue eyes that smiled at the light, rosebud lips that invited kisses. The nurse took the infant to the side of the bed, and asked the young mother to look at him. Those fever-bright eyes stared at the sweet small face with a gaze of ever-growing horror, and then with a wild shriek Isola clasped her hands before her eyes, and drew herself cowering to the further side of the bed.
“The dead child!” she cried. “Why do you show me that dead child? Don’t you see his throat streaming with blood?”
It was a case in which the nurses had no easy duty by day or night; and there were times when Disney insisted that the night-nurse should have extra rest, while he kept guard.
“But if she should be very bad, sir, you might not be able to manage.”
“Oh yes, I should. My sister is a very light sleeper. She would come to me in a moment, and she has a great deal of influence with my wife.”
This was true. From the beginning of evil Allegra’s presence had exercised a soothing power. She had been able to lull the patient to sleep sometimes, when opiates had failed to produce even fitful slumber. Isola was calmer and less restless when her sister-in-law was by her side.
In those long night watches, sometimes in solitude, Martin Disney had ample leisure in which to ponder upon his wedded life, and to consider how far the hopes with which he had entered upon that life had been realized. The retrospect left him melancholy, and with a latent sense of loss and disappointment; and yet he told himself again and again that he did ill to be dissatisfied, that Providence had dealt kindly with him.
At five and forty years of age, he, Martin Disney, of modest fortune and social status, and of no especial claim to be admired, intellectual or physical, had won the hand of a lovely and interesting girl. He had been so bewildered and overcome by the delight of his conquest, that he had entered upon no laborious process of self-examination before he took to himself this fair and winning partner. It had been enough for him that she came to him willingly, lovingly, in all truth and girlish simplicity, loyal as she was pure. He had never asked himself could such an attachment last—on her side? It had been enough for him that the love existed. It would be his duty and his delight to strengthen the bond, to draw that fair spirit into closer union with his own. He had felt no shadow of fear for the future. Once having won her, it must be easy to keep his treasure—easy for him who would so faithfully guard and cherish this priceless gift of a benign Providence. He was a man of deep religious feeling—a man who recognized in good and evil, in joy and in sorrow, the dealings of an Almighty God with His short-sighted creatures. He accepted his happiness in fear and trembling, knowing the instability of all mortal joys; but he had never feared the loss of Isola’s love.