heart so cruelly! To tell him that Berta had lost her reason would be to
kill him. The good man watched over his daughter with the eyes of love,
but love itself made him blind and he did not perceive her madness.

And the housekeeper became every day more and more convinced of the
reality of this dreadful misfortune. During the night she stole many times
to the sleeping girl's bedside and listened to her calm breathing. No
extraordinary change, either in her habits, or her acts, or her words,
gave evidence of the wandering of her mind. True; but she was waiting for
Adrian Baker and she declared that he would come. It was in vain she tried
to persuade her that this was folly, for Berta either grew angry and
commanded her to be silent, or smiled with scornful pity at her arguments.
Was not this madness?

The housekeeper suddenly lost her appetite and her sleep; and she shunned
Berta's father, for she was not sure of being able to keep the secret
which she carried in her bosom. The same thought kept revolving in her
mind like a mill. It seemed as if Berta's madness was going to cost the
nurse also her reason.

One night she lay tossing about, unable to sleep, her imagination filled
with dreadful spectres. In the midst of the darkness she saw faces
approaching and receding from her, that laughed and wept, that vanished to
appear again, and all these faces that danced before her eyes had,
notwithstanding their grotesque features, a diabolical likeness to the
head of Adrian Baker. The nurse, terrified, shut her eyes, that she might
not see them, but notwithstanding she still continued seeing them.

She thought that she was under the influence of a nightmare, and making an
effort she sat up in the bed. Suddenly she heard a distant sound of sweet