"It is that very opinion, love, that has been perplexing and worrying me all night. I can't alter it; I feel more certain than ever that there must be something wrong with the poor creature's intellect—and yet, when I remember how good-naturedly she came here to help me, and how anxious she seemed to make herself useful, I can't help feeling ashamed of my suspicions; I can't help reproaching myself for having been the cause of her dismissal last night. Mr. Orridge, did you notice any thing in Mrs. Jazeph's face or manner which might lead you to doubt whether her intellects were quite as sound as they ought to be?"
"Certainly not, Mrs. Frankland, or I should never have brought her here. I should not have been astonished to hear that she was suddenly taken ill, or that she had been seized with a fit, or that some slight accident, which would have frightened nobody else, had seriously frightened her; but to be told that there is any thing approaching to derangement in her faculties, does, I own, fairly surprise me."
"Can I have been mistaken!" exclaimed Rosamond, looking confusedly and self-distrustfully from Mr. Orridge to her husband. "Lenny! Lenny! if I have been mistaken, I shall never forgive myself."
"Suppose you tell us, my dear, what led you to suspect that she was mad?" suggested Mr. Frankland.
Rosamond hesitated. "Things that are great in one's own mind," she said, "seem to get so little when they are put into words. I almost despair of making you understand what good reason I had to be frightened—and then, I am afraid, in trying to do justice to myself, that I may not do justice to the nurse."
"Tell your own story, my love, in your own way, and you will be sure to tell it properly," said Mr. Frankland.
"And pray remember," added Mr. Orridge, "that I attach no real importance to my opinion of Mrs. Jazeph. I have not had time enough to form it. Your opportunities of observing her have been far more numerous than mine."
Thus encouraged, Rosamond plainly and simply related all that had happened in her room on the previous evening, up to the time when she had closed her eyes and had heard the nurse approaching her bedside. Before repeating the extraordinary words that Mrs. Jazeph had whispered in her ear, she made a pause, and looked earnestly in her husband's face.
"Why do you stop?" asked Mr. Frankland.
"I feel nervous and flurried still, Lenny, when I think of the words the nurse said to me, just before I rang the bell."