Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/266

256[February 13, 1869] other, and tried to fasten my feet around it. The operation was not an easy or rapid one, and before it was accomplished Louise, with a shriek of terror, had flown to the window, and was endeavouring to hold me back. But it was in vain her fragile fingers clutched me; I was resolved to succeed in my attempt; and now, indeed, I felt my feet were fastened round the pipe securely. Closer and closer I drew myself towards it, and further from the window, until, at last, I let go the mullion.

"Then it was that my poor sister, in her nervous terror, bent her whole body out of the window, and, stretching forth both hands, she lost her balance, and fell, with one wild scream, headlong into the moat below!

"Never, if I were to live a thousand years, can I forget that moment! How it was I managed to slide down the pipe, I scarcely know, now. I can just remember catching sight of my mother's awful face, and hearing her shrieks at the window; the next minute I was in the water, and striking out in the direction of something that floated near me.

"Half a dozen men were in the moat as soon as I was, and between them she was quickly brought to shore, and laid upon the bank; but, alas! the truth was evident at a glance; there could not be a doubt about it; she was dead. She had struck her head in falling, and death had mercifully been instantaneous. Would to God it had come to my poor, afflicted mother! She had entered that room by the panelled door, at the very moment that Louise lost her balance and fell; and she lost her reason from that hour. It was Hanne who held her back when she would have thrown herself out after her idolised child. It was Hanne who again held her back when she rushed at me with an open knife. The dislike in which she had always held me was now fomented to positive hatred. She regarded me as the wilful murderer of Louise, and the mere mention of my name was enough to bring on a paroxysm of mania. The doctor decided at once that she must never be permitted to see me. I was sent away to college, and when, at rare intervals, I returned here, my presence never failed to rouse her out of her habitual condition of quiet harmless melancholy into one of ungovernable fury. Thus, for years past I have never been able to set my foot within these walls. The world has long believed my mother to be dead; the poor faithful servants here alone have tended and guarded their old mistress, seeing that she came to no harm, and keeping me regularly informed of the state of her health. She never left the schloss, but wandered to and from Louise's room, by day and night, folding and unfolding her child's clothes, looking at her books in a vacant way, and careful that every little article that had belonged to her should be kept in the very place where Louise left it. The servants told me that she never spoke of Louise as dead; she was always looking for her return

"When I came to man's estate, my first object was to consult, either personally or by letter, all the most eminent surgeons in Europe who have devoted themselves to the study of insanity, as to my hapless mother's condition. There were several consultations, but little comfort came of them. All agreed, indeed, that such a condition was not absolutely hopeless. Cases had been known when, by powerfully affecting the heart upon the one subject which had caused madness, the brain had regained its equilibrium. But such cases were rare, and how, in my mother's case, was this end to be compassed? At last, Dr., a man full of original expedients, said to me: 'Find, if you can, some girl who closely resembles what your sister was Introduce her into the schloss, as nearly as possible under the same circumstances as your sister see what that will do It may open the sluices of all the poor lady's tender maternal feelings, and thus work a cure. Any way, it can do no harm. I will answer for it, she will not dislike, or try to harm the girl.'

"To comprehend my intense anxiety on this subject, Magda, and the earnest longing wherewith I set about my search, thou must try and enter into my feelings during all these years. Not alone had I been the cause of my poor Louise's death, but also of this enduring and yet more frightful calamity, whereby my mother and I were living on in the world as strangers to each other It is hardly too much to say that my whole life was embittered by remorse To feel her hand laid upon my head, to hear her say that she forgave me—this was the dearest hope I then had

"For many years my search was fruitless. I found fair-haired and gentle girls in abundance, but whenever I tried to trace the desired resemblance, it failed; either voice, or face, or manner, or the soul within, was utterly unlike Louise's. It is