She turned her face to the wall and did not answer.
"I know that you parted in anger, but it all seems to me a great mystery. Whatever cause he may have had for estranging himself, I did not think Mr. St. John was one to forsake you in this heartless way, with the grave so near."
"He forsook me in health," she said, and her voice now had assumed that hollow tone it would never lose in this world; "you might admit there was an excuse for him if you knew all. But--all this time--never to make inquiry after me--never to seek to know if I am dead, or living, or married to another! Whilst to hear of him, to see him, I would forfeit what life is left to me."
New Year's Day.--And a fearful commotion the house has been in, by way of welcome. This morning Adeline was taken alarmingly worse; we thought she was dying, and doctors, priests, friends and servants, jostled each other in the sick chamber. The doctors gained possession, expelled us all in a body, and enforced quiet. She will not die yet, they say, if she is allowed tranquillity--not for some days, perhaps weeks, but will rally again. I think they are right, for she is much better this evening. Adeline is nineteen today. This time last year! this time last year! it was the scene and hour of her brilliant ball-night. How things have changed since then!
Yesterday Adeline showed her hands to young Docteur H----. It has struck her as being very singular that their nails should have turned white. It strikes me so too. He seemed to intimate that it was a very uncommon occurrence, but said he had seen it happen from intense anxiety of mind. "Which," he added, "cannot be your case, my dear Mademoiselle de Castella." Adeline hastily drew her hands under the blue silk sofa cover, and spoke of something else.
Jan. 5th.--"Could you not wheel the chair into the other room--to the window?" Adeline asked suddenly today. "I should like to look out on the world once more."
Louise glanced round at me, and I at the nurse, not knowing what to do. But the nurse made no objection, and she and Louise wheeled the large chair, with as little motion as possible, to one of the drawing-room windows, and then raised her up, and supported her while she stood.
It was no cheering prospect that she gazed upon. A slow, small rain was falling; the snow, fast melting on the housetops, was running down in streams of water, and patches of snow lay in the streets, but they were fast turning into mud and slop. Through an open space a glimpse of the distant country was obtained, and there the snow lay bleak, white, and dreary. What few people were passing in the street hurried along under large cotton umbrellas, some as red and round as Louise's, the women with their heads tied up in blue and yellow kerchiefs. "Dreary, dreary!" she murmured as she gazed; "dreary and void of hope, as my later life has been!"
Old Madame G----'s cook came out of their house with an earthen pan, and placed it underneath the spout to catch the water.
"Is that Madame G---- herself?" cried Adeline, watching the movement. "Where can her two servants be?"