She was as one in a dream, to whom a tide of unlooked-for
prosperity, that would have overwhelmed his waking reason, seems but
the natural current of circumstances. Her conversation, however,
showed that her senses were wandering. There was an absolute
forgetfulness of all past sorrow--a wild and feverish gayety, that at
times was incoherent.
The next morning, she awoke languid and exhausted. All the occurrences
of the preceding day had passed away from her mind, as though they had
been the mere illusions of her fancy. She rose melancholy and
abstracted, and, as she dressed herself, was heard to sing one of her
plaintive ballads. When she entered the parlour, her eyes were swoln
with weeping. She heard Eugene's voice without, and started. She
passed her hand across her forehead, and stood musing, like one
endeavouring to recall a dream. Eugene entered the room, and advanced
towards her; she looked at him with an eager, searching look, murmured
some indistinct words, and before he could reach her, sank upon the
floor.
She relapsed into a wild and unsettled state of mind; but now that the
first shock was over, the physician ordered that Eugene should keep
continually in her sight. Sometimes she did not know him; at other
times she would talk to him as if he were going to sea, and would
implore him not to part from her in anger; and when he was not
present, she would speak of him as if buried in the ocean, and would
sit, with clasped hands, looking upon the ground, the picture of
despair.
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