A sense of relief and wild exultation beamed from her countenance, on uttering the last words, and she rose up and walked about the room wringing her hands, yet smiling at the idea of being relieved by Death the Consoler! It is not indeed unusual to witness in deranged persons, an unconscious impression of pain and misery, accompanied at the same time by a vague sense of unreal happiness—that is, a happiness which, whilst it balances the latent conviction of their misery does not, however, ultimately remove it. This probably constitutes that pleasure in madness, which, it is said, none but mad persons know.
At length she stood, and, for a long time seemed musing upon various and apparently contrasted topics, for she sometimes smiled as a girl at play, and sometimes relapsed into darkness of mood and pain, and incoherency. But after passing through these rapid changes for many minutes, she suddenly exclaimed in a low but earnest voice, “Where is he?”
“Where is who, love?” said her mother.
“Where is he?—why does he not come?—something more than usual must prevent him, or he would not stay away so long from ‘his own Jane Sinclair.’ But I forgot; bless me, how feeble my memory is growing! Why this is the hour of our appointment, and I will be late unless I hurry—for who could give so gentle and affectionate a being as Charles pain?”
She immediately put on her bonnet, and was about to go abroad, when her father, gently laying his hand upon her arm, said, in a kind but admonitory voice, in which was blended a slightly perceptible degree of parental authority—
“My daughter, surely you will not go out—you are unwell.”
She started slightly, paused, and looked as if trying to remember something that she had forgotten. The struggle, however, was vain—her recollection proved too weak for the task it had undertaken. After a moment’s effort, she smiled sweetly in her father’s face, and said—
“You would not have me break my appointment, nor give poor Charles pain, and his health, moreover, so delicate. You know he would die rather than give me a moment’s anxiety. Die!—see that again—I know not what puts death into my head so often.”
“Henry,” said her mother, “it is probably better to let her have her own way for the present—at least until Dr. M’Cormick arrives. You and Agnes can accompany her, perhaps she may be the better for it.”
“I cannot refuse her,” said the old man; “at all events, I agree with you; there can, I think, be no possible harm in allowing her to go. Come, Agnes, we must, alas! take care of her.”