Then Mrs. Burton remembered how nervous and fitful she had been ever since Annie died. “She took a violent cold at that time,” the lady said, “and has never been or looked well since.”
“I thought there must be something behind. A person in perfect health could hardly be struck down like this by mere fright. She does not seem to have the free use of her limbs. Miss Burton”—and he turned to his patient—“lift your right hand if you can, or speak to me and tell me who I am.”
The great black eyes were wide open, and fixed upon his face with an expression which showed that Georgie heard; but the right hand did not move, and the white lips only gave forth a queer kind of sound, as they tried in vain to repeat the doctor’s name.
“What is it, doctor? Oh, tell me what ails my darling?” Mrs. Burton asked, terribly frightened at the look on Georgie’s face, and the peculiar expression of her mouth.
“Auntie,” Maude said, in a low whisper, “come with me; I’ll tell you;” and leading her frightened aunt into the hall, she told her as gently as possible that Georgie was paralyzed.
It was true. The long-continued strain upon mind and nerve, which she had endured in guarding her secret, with the skeleton of detection always threatening her, added to the terrible shock of the previous night, had been more than nature could endure without a loud protest; and the prickly sensation she had felt creeping through every vein was the precursor to the fearful thing which had come upon her, striking her down as the lightning strikes the oak, and leaving just one-half of her helpless, motionless, dead. There was no feeling in any part of her right side; no power to move the soft, white hand, which lay just where they put it; no power to speak audibly in the pale lips whose last act had been to frame a tissue of falsehoods whereby she could steer safely through the labyrinth of woe in which she was entangled. Poor Georgie! There were hot tears shed for her that bright June morning, when the sun, which should have shone upon her bridal day, came up over the eastern hills, and looked in at the windows of the room where she lay so helpless and so still, knowing perfectly well what was doing and saying around; but having no power to tell them that she knew, save by the feeble pressure of the fingers of her left hand, and the slow shutting of her eyelids.
Wistfully Georgie’s eyes followed each movement of the people around her, as if imploring aid, and resting longest upon Jack, who wept like a little child over his stricken sister. All her faults and errors were forgotten in this great calamity which had come so suddenly upon her; and he remembered only that she was his sister, the beautiful girl whom he had loved, and petted, and befriended, and chided, and scolded, and blamed, ever since he had been old enough to read her character aright. There were no scoldings, no chidings, no blaming now; nothing but love and tenderness; and the hot tears rained in torrents over his face, as, in obedience to a look in her eye, which he construed into a wish for him to come nearer to her, he bent his face to hers, and felt the cold lips trying to kiss his cheek, while the left hand crept feebly up to his head, and stroked and parted his hair. No one of all those present thought Jack one whit less manly for the great choking sobs which he smothered on Georgie’s neck, or the tears which dropped so fast upon her hair and brow.
With a trembling grasp she held his face close to her own and tried to tell him something. But it was all in vain that he strained every nerve of his ear to understand what she meant. There was nothing to be made out of the mumbling noise, the only sound she could articulate. It would not always be thus, the doctor said. She would recover her powers of speech, partially, if not in whole, and possibly recover the use of her limbs. He had seen far worse forms of paralysis from which there was entire recovery. She was young, and naturally healthy, and had every reason to hope for entire restoration to health.
“Be of good courage,” he said to her kindly, for he saw she understood him, and hung eagerly upon his words; “be of good courage, and you will yet be a happy bride, though perhaps not to-day.”
There was a sound then from the pallid lips, a low, moaning sound, and a spasm of pain contracted every muscle of the white face, while in the dark eyes there was a look of horror, as if the doctor’s words had not been welcome ones. Maude, who was standing by her, and chafing her lifeless hands, said to her next, “We have sent for Roy, Georgie. Do you want to see him?”