'I must tell you that I cannot answer for her life, unless the
greatest precautions are taken on your part, and unless the measures
I shall use have the effect I wish for in the next twenty-four
hours. She is on the verge of a brain fever. Any allusion to the
subject which has been the final cause of the state in which she now
is must be most cautiously avoided, even to a chance word which may
bring it to her memory.' And so on; but Philip seemed to hear only this: then he might not
express contrition, or sue for pardon, he must go on unforgiven
through all this stress of anxiety; and even if she recovered the
doctor warned him of the undesirableness of recurring to what had
passed!
Heavy miserable times of endurance and waiting have to be passed
through by all during the course of their lives; and Philip had had
his share of such seasons, when the heart, and the will, and the
speech, and the limbs, must be bound down with strong resolution to
patience.
For many days, nay, for weeks, he was forbidden to see Sylvia, as
the very sound of his footstep brought on a recurrence of the fever
and convulsive movement. Yet she seemed, from questions she feebly
asked the nurse, to have forgotten all that had happened on the day
of her attack from the time when she dropped off to sleep. But how
much she remembered of after occurrences no one could ascertain. She
was quiet enough when, at length, Philip was allowed to see her. But
he was half jealous of his child, when he watched how she could
smile at it, while she never changed a muscle of her face at all he
could do or say.
And of a piece with this extreme quietude and reserve was her
behaviour to him when at length she had fully recovered, and was
able to go about the house again. Philip thought many a time of the
words she had used long before--before their marriage. Ominous words
they were.
'It's not in me to forgive; I sometimes think it's not in me to
forget.' Philip was tender even to humility in his conduct towards her. But
nothing stirred her from her fortress of reserve. And he knew she
was so different; he knew how loving, nay, passionate, was her
nature--vehement, demonstrative--oh! how could he stir her once more
into expression, even if the first show or speech she made was of
anger? Then he tried being angry with her himself; he was sometimes
unjust to her consciously and of a purpose, in order to provoke her
into defending herself, and appealing against his unkindness. He
only seemed to drive her love away still more.
If any one had known all that was passing in that household, while
yet the story of it was not ended, nor, indeed, come to its crisis,
their hearts would have been sorry for the man who lingered long at
the door of the room in which his wife sate cooing and talking to
her baby, and sometimes laughing back to it, or who was soothing the
querulousness of failing age with every possible patience of love;
sorry for the poor listener who was hungering for the profusion of
tenderness thus scattered on the senseless air, yet only by stealth
caught the echoes of what ought to have been his.