again upon the bed, and hid her face.

"My guide, who was leaning carelessly by the window, turned to me with a
sort of smirk--'This is her way, Sir,' he said; 'her madness is of a very
singular description: we have not, as yet, been able to discover how far
it extends; sometimes she seems conscious of the past, sometimes utterly
oblivious of every thing: for days she is perfectly silent, or, at least,
says nothing more than you have just heard; but, at times, she raves so
violently, that--that--but I never use force where it can be helped.'

"I looked at the man, but I could not answer, unless I had torn him to
pieces on the spot. I turned away hastily from the room; but I did not
quit the house without Gertrude--I placed her in the carriage, by my
side--notwithstanding all the protestations and fears of the keeper:
these were readily silenced by the sum I gave him; it was large enough to
have liberated half his household. In fact, I gathered from his
conversation, that Tyrrell had spoken of Gertrude as an unhappy female
whom he himself had seduced, and would now be rid of. I thank you,
Pelham, for that frown, but keep your indignation till a fitter season
for it.

"I took my victim, for I then regarded her as such, to a secluded and
lonely spot: I procured for her whatever advice England could afford; all
was in vain. Night and day I was by her side, but she never, for a
moment, seemed to recollect me: yet were there times of fierce and
overpowering delirium, when my name was uttered in the transport of the
most passionate enthusiasm--when my features as absent, though not
present, were recalled and dwelt upon with all the minuteness of the most
faithful detail; and I knelt by her in all those moments, when no other
human being was near, and clasped her wan hand, and wiped the dew from