"It was very fortunate that you were not married to either of them."
Caroline, wondering what her mother could mean, took the paper in silence, and began to read the part indicated by the manner of folding. Lady Palliser sipped her coffee without even a look of inquiry towards her daughter; but had there been any one present to have noted the emotions marked on the countenance of Caroline, they would have seen first, a faint glow as the names met her sight; then the gradual retiring of the same; then the unconscious parting of the lips and holding of the breath; next a quickened respiration, a flickering colour, and a countenance full of indignant expression.
Soon after this profound attention seemed to still every pulse, for the paper which before had visibly vibrated with each throb of the heart, no longer stirred, while every vestige of the lines of life retired even from the lips: the eyes alone moved, as eagerly they traced, from margin to margin, line after line. Suddenly a rush of crimson covered the face and neck, a piercing cry escaped the lips, and Caroline fell senseless to the floor, having become again pale as a corpse.
It was some hours before she showed any returning signs of life, and when she again opened her eyes it was evident, from their piteous expression, that consciousness, whether of woe or weal was gone.
Subsequently, however, though she still noticed no other object, she manifested such strong symptoms of terror at the approach of Lady Palliser, that the medical attendant thought fit to recommend her ladyship not to enter the apartment.
Lady Palliser, from whom patient attendance on sickness or suffering was not at any rate much to be expected, soon began to get exceedingly tired of the whole affair. She was also provoked that her daughter's name should, however blamelessly, be implicated with that of a family on whom such disgrace had fallen; for though Alfred's escape was by this time known, the stigma was still the same; he was still under sentence of death—he was still believed to be a murderer. Caroline's sudden illness too had made matters worse; for its supposed cause had got abroad, and having spread from the English to the natives, became the universal topic of conversation with high and low. That this would be still more the case in England her ladyship was well aware; she determined therefore not to return thither till the business should be in a great measure forgotten; in the mean time to proceed on her tour, leaving her daughter, who was unable to travel, at Geneva, with of course a suitable establishment of sick-nurses and servants, and attended, unluckily, by some medical personage who had acquired a questionable reputation nobody knew how, and whose opinion therefore Lady Palliser, with her usual whimsical irrationality, chose to consider the best medical advice within reach; and to whose care, without weighing the subject further, she accordingly committed the reason and the life of her only child. Whether her ladyship would have taken the unfeeling step of proceeding on her journey, had her presence afforded consolation to the suffering Caroline, it is impossible to say; but, as her sage adviser still recommended her to refrain from seeing his patient, she appeared to consider herself at liberty to follow her own devices.
CHAPTER XVII.
Having thus explained how it happened that our heroine was found at Geneva in the forlorn state described, we must now return to Alfred. He followed the apparition of Caroline, saw her couch lifted from the boat to a kind of carriage which was in waiting on the shore, landed himself immediately, and though incapable of plan or purpose, pursued the carriage. It stopped at a villa at a little distance. He saw Caroline lifted out, and carried into the house. Impelled by an uncontrollable impulse, and too much agitated to think of forms, he entered the hall with the servants, of whom he made some incoherent inquiries. They seemed scarcely to comprehend him. A person passed hastily in almost at the moment and entered a sitting-room which opened into the hall, and into which the couch with the invalid had just been carried.
"It is the doctor, sir," said a servant, with a puzzled air, which seemed to infer, he can probably answer you better than I can.