Eugene entered and sat down. "What is the matter?" He said. But Annie answered not; her looks were those of one too wretched to weep.
Eugene repeated his inquiry, and then she softly whispered: "O! Eugene, she has gone out of her mind!" Eugene covered his face with his hands. [{609}] It was a long time ere either could speak again. At length Annie rose on tiptoe and opened the door communicating with the invalid's apartments. His mother was lying quietly on the sofa, muttering at intervals. Eugene approached and listened. He thought he caught the sound of his own name. He went nearer and knelt beside her. The sick woman knew it not, but her arm laid itself restlessly around his neck, and as his hot tears fell on her cheek she kept repeating in her sleep the words, "Eugene, my dear Eugene!" Singularly enough, when she waked she evinced no surprise at finding him there. It was as though she knew it intuitively, or had expected it. Perhaps it was the prolongation of her dream. She did not greet him as a stranger, or speak as if long months had passed since she saw him, for question him as to his occupation or place of abode. She waked, but was as if still dreaming of him. She found him there, where she had so long wished him to be, quietly asked him to hand her a glass of water, took it from him contentedly, returned the glass, kissed him as he bent over her, and sank into along, tranquil sleep, from which she tranquilly and apparently refreshed, but still taking Eugene's appearance as a matter of course which called for no expression of surprise.
The physician now insisted on this state of contentment being left undisturbed. He had long wished Mr. Godfrey and Hester out of the house on account of the excitement they produced in his patient; he now insisted that they should not be seen, heard, board named in the sick-room; "in fact," he said to them, "if it were convenient, it would be better you should retire from the house until Mrs. Godfrey can herself be moved. A paroxysm now might kill her. Spare her that, and I hope she will recover. This illness appears to have been occasioned by mental anguish and evidently her son only has the power to soothe her." Hester was deeply moved; Mr. Godfrey was angry, but he hid his vexation. "He would wait a day or two," he said; "if Mrs. Godfrey continued to improve, he would take Hester to Yorkshire, where their presence was greatly needed."
He was, however, so much irritated that he would not see Eugene, in spite of his entreaties conveyed by Annie. Meals were served up to him and Hester in a separate room, and he now appeared only anxious to get away. Hester was, however, almost heart-broken. She had not been allowed to speak to Eugene; but the night before their departure, after Mr. Godfrey had retired for the night, she sent a note to him containing these words only:
"Come to my room, I am very unhappy.
Let me see you ere I go.
"Your own sister,
"HESTER."
"I thought you would not deny me, Eugene," she said, as the latter entered her apartment; "you were ever kind and forgiving. Tell me, first, have you any hopes of mother?"
"Indeed I have, dear sister, the greatest hopes."
"Do you call me 'dear sister'? You are not angry with me, then, Eugene?"
"Not much more angry than I was the day you took my horse away when I wanted to go hunting; do you remember it, Hester?"
"I do, but you would not speak to me then till mother reconciled us. Dear mother! our childish quarrels always worried her. She was never easy till she had set them right. Would we were children again, Eugene, and our quarrels as easily adjusted." Hester was weeping as she spoke.