“We must be friends, little Eva,” he said to her huskily, with a yearning smile in his eyes; but she made no reply, only looked at him fixedly and wistfully, and broke into her haunting refrain:
“Fair Diantha loved a lover,
Madly, madly, madly——”
“We will go on,” Doctor Bertrand said gently, drawing him away, and adding kindly: “I see you have fallen under her spell like all the rest of us.”
“Who could help it, poor girl?” he answered abstractedly, moving on by her side and continuing:
“Have you tried to rouse her interest in anything? I should fancy she would like books and flowers, like any young girl. There is a conservatory here, I believe?”
“Yes, and little Eva shall have some of the sweetest flowers to-morrow. I am sorry I did not think of that before,” answered the bright young woman cordially.
“And I will bring her a book. Of course she would like poetry. Every young girl does, naturally. What a blessing if we could restore her to reason again!” he cried.
“And yet the pity of it,” she said thoughtfully. “Even if she were restored to her right mind again, there is no home open to poor little Eva, unless the old people that sent her here would take her back. It is the saddest case in the world!”
She was not aware that the superintendent of the asylum, Doctor St. Clair, was in the ward, until he spoke close to her elbow: