GREAT and many were my musings what steps I ought to take; or, indeed, whether I ought to take any steps in the strange dilemma I was in. I considered of it till my head ached. What if Sarah’s mind were possibly just at that delicate point when means of cure might be effectual? but how could I bring her to any means of cure? There have been many miserable stories told about false imputations of insanity and dreadful cruelties and injustice following, but I almost think there might be as many and as sad on the other side, about friends watching in agony, neither able nor willing to take any steps until it was too late, far too late, for any good. This was the situation I felt myself in; no matter whether I was right or wrong in my opinion, this was how I felt myself. I suppose nobody can think of madness appearing beside them in the person of their nearest companion, without a dreadful thrill and terror at their heart; but at the same time I felt that, however inevitable this might be, I must first come to it unmistakably. I must first see it, hear it, beyond all possibility of doubt, before I ventured to whisper it even to the secret ear of a physician.

All this floated through my mind with that dreadful faculty of jumping at conclusions that imagination always has. Did ever anybody meet with any great misfortune, which has been hanging some time over them, without going through it a thousand times before the blow really fell, and the dreadful repetition was done away with once and for ever? How many times over and over, sleeping and waking, does the death-bed watcher go through the parting that approaches before it really comes? Dying itself, I think,—one naturally thinks what kind of a process that is, as one comes near the appointed natural period of its coming,—dying itself must be rehearsed so often, that its coming at last is a real relief to the real actor. Not only does what is real go through a hundred performances in one’s imagination, but many a scene appals us that, thank heaven, we are never condemned to go through with. I could not see before me what was to happen, nor into Sarah’s mind{139} to know what was astir there; but I tortured myself all the same, gathering all the proofs of this new dismal light thrown upon her, in my mind. All insane people make up a persecutor or pursuer for themselves. Poor Sarah had found hers in the strange face,—it was so unusual in our quiet roads to see a strange face!—which she met all at once and without warning, on the quiet road.

I recollected every incident, and everything confirmed my idea. She had taken a panic all at once,—she had driven five miles round to get out of his way; from that hour painful watchfulness and anxiety had come to her face. Carson was sent out to see that the road was clear, before, poor soul, she would venture out, though with the carriage blinds drawn down. Ah! I think if my only communication with the open air and the out-of-doors world was in the enclosure of that carriage with the blinds drawn down, I should certainly go mad, and quickly too! I had a long afternoon by myself in the library that day. I went back, as well as my memory would carry me, into the history of the Mortimers. Insanity was not in our family,—no trace of it. We had never been very clever, but we had been obstinately sane and sober-minded. My mother’s family too, the Stamfords, so far as I know, were all extremely steady people. It is odd when one individual of a family, and no more, shows a tendency to wander; at sixty, too, all of a sudden, with no possible reason. But who can search into the ways of Providence? It might perhaps never go any further; it might be the long silence of her life, and perhaps long brooding over such things as may have happened to her in the course of it. Something must have happened to Sarah; she was not like me. She had really lived her life, and had her own course in the world. She had known her own bitterness, too, no doubt, or she—she, the great beauty, the heiress,—would not have been Sarah Mortimer sitting voiceless by the fireside. She had been too silent, had too much leisure to go over her life. Her brain had rusted in the quietness; terrors had risen within her that took form and found an execution for themselves whenever, without any warning, she saw a strange face. This explained everything. I could see it quite clear with this interpretation; and without this nothing could explain it; for the young Italian looking for his friend, the lady whom nobody had ever heard of, could be nothing in the world to Sarah Mortimer.

Thinking over this, it naturally occurred to me that it would be important to let my poor sister know that this innocent{140} young object of her fears had left the neighbourhood. It might, even, who knows? restore the balance to her poor mind. I got up from my chair the moment I thought of that, but did not go out of the library quite so quickly as you might have supposed, either. I was afraid of Sarah’s passions and reproaches; I always was. She had a way of representing everybody else as so unkind to her, poor dear soul, and of making out that she was neglected and of no consequence. Though I knew that this was not the case, I never could help feeling uncomfortable. Perhaps if I could only have put myself in her place, I might have felt the same; but it made me very timid of starting any subject before her that she did not like, even though it might be to relieve her mind.

I went slowly into the drawing-room. I thought most likely little Sara was dressing upstairs, and we two would have a little time to ourselves. When I went into the great room it was lying in the twilight, very dim and shadowy. The great mirror looked like another dimmer world added on to this one which was already so dim,—a world all full of glimpses and gliding figures, and brightened up by the gleams of the firelight which happened to be blazing very bright and cheerful. There were no curtains closed nor blinds down. Four great............