n
earnestness that never relaxed. She would regularly change the ice, or
the cooling spirit, on his head, and would keep her ear at the pillow
betweenwhiles, listening for any faint words that fell from him in his
wanderings. It was amazing through how many hours at a time she would
remain beside him, in a crouching attitude, attentive to his slightest
moan. As he could not move a hand, he could make no sign of distress;
but, through this close watching (if through no secret sympathy or
power) the little creature attained an understanding of him that
Lightwood did not possess. Mortimer would often turn to her, as if she
were an interpreter between this sentient world and the insensible man;
and she would change the dressing of a wound, or ease a ligature, or
turn his face, or alter the pressure of the bedclothes on him, with an
absolute certainty of doing right. The natural lightness and delicacy of
touch which had become very refined by practice in her miniature work,
no doubt was involved in this; but her perception was at least as fine.

The one word, Lizzie, he muttered millions of times. In a certain phase
of his distressful state, which was the worst to those who tended him,
he would roll his head upon the pillow, incessantly repeating the name
in a hurried and impatient manner, with the misery of a disturbed mind,
and the monotony of a machine. Equally, when he lay still and staring,
he would repeat it for hours without cessation, but then, always in a
tone of subdued warning and horror. Her presence and her touch upon his
breast or face would often stop this, and then they learned to expect
that he would for some time remain still, with his eyes closed, and that
he would be conscious on opening them. But, the heavy disappointment of
their hope--revived by the welcome silence of the room--was, that his
spirit would glide away again and be lost, in the moment of their joy
that it was there.

This frequent rising of a drowning man from the deep, to sink again, was
dreadful to the beholders. But, gradually the change stole upon him that
it became dreadful to himself. His desire to impart something that was
on his mind, his unspeakable yearning to have speech with his friend
and make a communication to him, so troubled him when he recovered
consciousness, that its term was thereby shortened. As the man rising
from the deep would disappear the sooner for fighting with the water, so
he in his desperate struggle went d