"From Clifton?" said the physician thoughtfully, after examining my husband's case. "I have a patient, a strange case; she is paralyzed, and her mental faculties are stunned. A Cuban family brought her here and placed her under my care. Her husband had committed a forgery, and had fled the country to escape arrest. She is an accomplished lady, I should judge. She was left in Havana quite poor and friendless. I have been led to speak to you about her because she is always writing two words—Mary and Clifton. The Spanish lady who brought her here knew nothing of her former history."
I was silent during this recital, and so white that the doctor offered me water. I thanked him, and expressed a wish to go to my friend immediately.
"I cannot return to the hospital this morning," he said; "but I will give you my card, which will admit you to the lady at once."
There I found her, a silent, faded figure, sitting still, and for all purposes of life quite dead.
I was awed as I stood before her. I sat down and took her poor, neglected hand in mine. She looked at me and made a feeble attempt to gather back her hair which had fallen in great disorder about her shoulders. I rose to do this for her. It was still glossy and beautiful as ever. I began to arrange it in the fashion she had worn it seven years before. She took my hand from her head, laid it in her lap, chafed it, then reverently raised it to her lips. I could restrain my tears no longer, and I hid my face in the folds of her faded dress. She turned me toward her and wiped the tears from my cheek.
"You are going home with me, Marian darling," I said; "to live always in our own old home."
"I know it," she whispered; "I have been waiting for you so long, so very long."
This was the first time she had spoken to me. The nurse had told me that she spoke occasionally, but always in an absent and incoherent manner.
Sea-bathing was recommended; but the doctor was of the opinion that her mind would never recover its original vigor.
I would like him to see her as she left me this morning, calm and beautiful, when the bell of the convent, where she is teaching German, summoned attendance.