Page:Ethel Churchill 3.pdf/295

Rh would be wrong to deceive you; Lady Marchmont is, I fear, irrecoverably insane." She leant against the bed, pale, sick with the shock of his words; yet mingled with a strange and fearful relief. Insanity, with no further cause, would account for Henrietta's frantic ravings; and when she thought how gifted, how clever she was, it seemed impossible that such a mind could pass away in a single night. She hoped; she could not help hoping. When the physician went away, she approached the bed, and gazed upon Henrietta sleeping. How wan, and how attenuated was that beautiful face! the cheek fell in, with a complete hollow; and the black eye-lashes, as they rested upon it, only served to show still more forcibly its deadly whiteness.

She had been restless at first; and some of the silvery gray hair fell over the forehead. Ethel put it softly back, and started to feel how the hot pulses throbbed beneath her touch. She carefully drew the curtains; and, leaving