“He was, dear child,” replied her father, trembling.
“Why did he leave me?” said she, dreamily; he feared her intellect was fading again.
“You have been ill, my darling, we have been nursing you long,” said he, drawing her down toward him.
“Stop, let me think;” she put her hand to her forehead; “he is dead they say—dead—poor Charles!—and did not see me first. I am his widow then—” again her mind appeared in her working countenance. “Ah, I remember all now; he did not love me, he loved Hilary Duncan, and there was Maurice who loved me—and we parted! poor Maurice—and he was with him when he died—oh, papa—”
She threw herself on the ground at his feet, and laying her head against his knee, she shed the first tears she had wept for years. Her father kissed and caressed her fondly, making her tears flow faster and faster, until she had wept away the mist from her mind, the torpor from her faculties, and was reasonable, rational, and quiet.
Extreme exhaustion ensued; but by incessant care, and the most skillful treatment, her strength slowly returned, and with her strength came perfect memory and command of her faculties.
Slowly she learned to appreciate her position, to interest herself in her property, to assume her station as the mistress of “the Ferns,” the widow of Charles Huyton; and when a year had passed away there remained no traces of her illness, except the steadiness and gravity which now marked her manners, in striking contrast with her girlish habits.
* * * * *
“Hilary, dear,” said Dora Duncan one day to her sister-in-law, as they strolled together under the old lime-trees at “the Ferns,” while Nest, a tall, graceful young woman, was playing with her little nephew, Maurice, “Hilary, why are you not happy?”
“Happy! I am, content, peaceful, happy, as one can be in this world, dear Dora.”