Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/486

 15, 1864.] it open upon her knees, began to flutter the leaves backward and forward, playing idly with them.

"Good heavens!" said Astley to himself, "she is mad, imbecile at any rate; I must do something with her."

But it was impossible to think with her before him, and taking her by the hand, he said:

"Now, Mary, you must go back to bed, and to-morrow"

She did not wait for the end of the sentence, but rose at once to do as she was bidden, threw down the book, and letting fall the coverlet that had enveloped her, walked quietly back to the inner room.

Astley fastened the door and felt as if he were going mad from sheer bewilderment. She must have clothes the very first thing, and how were they to be procured without taking some one into his confidence? Even if he knew where to go for them, he knew nothing of what a woman's clothes should be. It was evident then that some one must be told of the extraordinary adventure, and it was equally evident that it must be a woman in whom he confided, as he required practical help of a kind no man could give him.

The morning dawned before he could arrange any settled plan, and finally he decided that he could not if he would rid himself of the charge of her, therefore she should remain in his house, and he would tell all to the woman who acted as his housekeeper, who chanced to be absent at the time, but whose return he was expecting that very day. He would bind her to secrecy by the most solemn oath he could devise, and if she failed to keep it, why—at any rate he was in a terrible scrape, and this seemed the best thing to be done. The woman returned early in the day, and Astley at once told all, and implored her assistance. To his great relief she agreed at once to do all that lay in her power for the unhappy girl, and a few arrangements made, Astley left the house for the day, determined to shake off the unpleasant impression which the whole thing had made upon him.

Returning at night he found Mary comfortably clothed, and looking less pale and ill. His housekeeper told him that she had been dressed like a child, having apparently no idea of assisting herself at all.

It would be impossible to describe minutely how intelligence dawned, and grew swiftly in the poor girl's mind. It was not a gradual growth from infancy, but came in fitful snatches. The greatest change came first, when her face brightened from its sweet, blank vacancy of expression at Astley's approach, and then she began to wait upon him like a loving child. He devoted himself to her very tenderly, almost as a mother devotes herself to her child, and with infinite patience taught her to read and to write. She learned also to sew, and was not unskilful in such woman's craft; but what he taught her was learned quickest, best.

Two years passed, and Mary had developed so rapidly that she was much like other women in knowledge and acquirements, but she had no memory of anything before her trance. Astley told her the whole story, and urged her to try to recall something of the time before, but it was in vain, her memory was clean gone. And the present time was so happy that they cared little for the past. She was something belonging so entirely to him, even her life she owed to his care, and loved him so intensely, there being no one in the world whom she knew or loved beside, that he could not fail to be very happy; and the mystery of the bond between them enhanced its charm.

They were married, and still she lived in the same privacy as before; her husband and his love sufficed for everything, and she shrank from entering a world of which she knew nothing. Astley's acquaintance had long ago decided that if he was not mad, he was at least eccentric enough to make his society undesirable, and had fallen off one by one, leaving him none but a professional circle. He had the reputation of being skilful, and his practice was a large one; his spare hours were devoted to his home, which was his heaven.

Two more years passed, years of the most perfect happiness. Mary differed now in nothing from other women, save for that blank existence of more than twenty years. Her memory of that time never returned. She lived entirely within doors; Astley had one evening taken her for a walk, and the unaccustomed sights and sounds of the streets had terrified her so much that he never repeated the experiment.

At times a longing to introduce his beautiful wife to his old friends and relatives in England was very strong, but the difficulties of explanation, or of deceit, which it would involve, combined with her extreme aversion to the project, always prevailed, and the idea was dismissed as the thing was impossible.

Six years had passed since the eventful night when Mary had been brought as dead to Astley's door, when walking one day in the streets of the city, he met an old friend whom he had not seen since his departure from England. The recognition was mutual, and Astley insisted upon his friend's returning with him to dinner. The invitation was cordially