"Take him away from you—nonsense! What are you dreaming of?"
"Death has been merciful; but you will be more cruel," she cried, looking at her husband. "You will take him away."
"Come, come, my dear lady, this is a delusion; you really must not give way to this kind of thing," murmured the doctor, rather complacently. He had a son-in-law who kept a private madhouse at Wimbledon, and began to think Mrs. Granger was drifting that way. It was sad, of course, a sweet young woman like that; but patients are patients, and Daniel Granger's wife would be peculiarly eligible.
He looked at Mr. Granger, and touched his forehead significantly. "The brain has been sorely taxed," he murmured, confidentially; "but we shall set all that right by-and-by." This with as confident an air as if the brain had been a clock.
Daniel Granger went over to his wife, and took her hand—it was the first time those two hands had met since the scene in Austin's painting-room—looking down at her gravely.
"Clarissa," he said, "on my word of honour, I will not attempt to separate you from your son."
She gave a great cry—a shriek, that rang through the room—and cast herself upon her husband's breast.
"O, God bless you for that!" she sobbed; "God bless—" and stopped, strangled by her sobs.
Mr. Granger put her gently back into her faithful hand-maiden's arms. That was different. He might respect her rights as a mother; he could never again accept her as his wife.
But a time came now in which all thought of the future was swept away by a very present danger. Before the next night, Clarissa was raving in brain-fever; and for more than a month life was a blank to her—or not a blank, an age of confused agony rather, to be looked back upon with horror by-and-by.