rawl over the floor, feeling the empty
space before her with her hand. It was horrible. I followed her, and
raised her again, by main force.

"Don't struggle with her," said the doctor. "Let her come here. He is
quiet now."

I looked at Oscar. The worst of it was over. He was exhausted--he was
quite still now. The doctor's voice guided her to the place. She sat down
by Oscar on the floor, and laid his head on her lap. The moment she
touched him, the same effect was produced on her which would be produced
(if our eyes were bandaged) on you or me when the bandage was taken off.
An instant sense of relief diffused itself through her whole being. She
became her gentler and sweeter self again. "I am sorry I lost my temper,"
she said with the simplicity of a child. "But you don't know how hard it
is to be deceived when you are blind." She stooped as she said those
words, and passed her handkerchief lightly over his forehead. "Doctor,"
she asked, "will this happen again?"

"I hope not."

"Are you sure not?"

"I can't say that."

"What has brought it on?"

"I am afraid the blow he received on the head has brought it on."

She asked no more questions; her eager face passed suddenly into a state
of repose. Something seemed to have come into her mind--after the
doctor's answer to her own question--which absorbed her in herself. When
Oscar recovered his consciousness, she left it to me to answer the first
natural questions which he put. When he personally addressed her she
spoke to him kindly, but briefly. Something in her, at that moment,
seemed to keep her apart, even from _him._ When the doctor proposed
taking him back to Browndown, she did not insist, as I had anticipated,
on going with them. She took leave of him tenderly--but still she let him
go. While he yet lingered near the door, looking back at her, she moved
away slowly to the further end of the room; self-withdrawn into her own
dark world--shut up in her thoughts from him and from us.

The doctor tried to rouse her.

"You must not think too seriously of this," he said, following her to the
window at which she stood, and dropping his voice so that Oscar could not
hear him. "He has himself told you that he feels lighter and better than
he felt before the fit. It has relieved instead of injuring him. There is
no danger. I assure you, on my honor, there is nothing to fear."

"Can you assure me, on your honor, of one other thing," she asked,
lowering her voice