They could not help noticing her exquisite beauty, though she had become pale and slight, like a snowdrop, with the wasting illness that had followed on her exposure to the storm the night of the tragedy. She was very quiet, and gave no trouble, save that her low, pathetic singing sometimes gave the young lady attendants such a turn that they said it fairly went to their hearts. No one wondered at it, as her story became known—the story of tragedy one could read so clearly in the big, sombre, dark eyes, with their wistful appealing.
The attendants said that they had never seen such a docile patient before. She was not violent or troublesome in any way, only intensely sad; never a smile on her red lips, that were always drooping in pathetic sorrow.
“It is the most pathetic case I ever saw. It is scarcely madness, only a settled melancholy that is breaking down her health, and will end in death unless she is roused to some new interest in life. It was cruel in her people to send her to Weston. They should have kept her at home and soothed and petted her like a child until she took some notice of things,” said the clever young woman doctor of the asylum, speaking of the case to her new colleague, Doctor Rupert.
He had only entered on his new duties the day before, and Doctor Bertrand was showing him through the wards, never noticing how nervous he became when she pointed out to him the interesting patient.
“Her name is Eva Somerville, and she has lost her reason through one of the most appalling tragedies that ever occurred in the State. Perhaps you read of it in the newspapers—the case where Doctor Ludington and Terry Groves murdered each other in her bedroom on Hallowe’en?”
“Yes, yes; I remember it well. So this is the heroine of the story? A very childish, innocent creature she looks, though the newspapers made her out very wicked,” returned Doctor Rupert, fairly devouring the hapless girl with his eyes, without surprising Doctor Bertrand, who was accustomed to every one admiring Eva Somerville.
She answered frankly:
“I believe the newspapers lied. There was some doubt as to her guilt, some mystery about the whole affair. For my part, I believe little Eva is wronged and innocent.”
“You are the first person I ever heard take her part. God bless you for a true, good woman, Doctor Bertrand!” exclaimed her hearer, grasping her hand and pressing it with emotion.
The young lady smiled with pleasure and answered: