Page:The Private Life, Lord Beaupré, The Visits (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893).djvu/237

head at all suggestions, waving away all nourishment save the infinitesimally little that enabled her to stretch out her hand from time to time (at intervals of very unequal length) and begin, "Mother, mother!" as if she were mustering courage for a supreme confession. The courage never came; she was haunted by a strange impulse to speak, which in turn was checked on her lips by some deeper horror or some stranger fear. She seemed to seek relief spasmodically from some unforgetable consciousness, and then to find the greatest relief of all in impenetrable silence. I knew these things only from her mother, for before me (I went gently in and out of her room two or three times a day) she gave no sign whatever. The little local doctor, after the first day, acknowledged himself at sea, and expressed a desire to consult with a colleague at Exeter. The colleague journeyed down to us and shuffled and stammered; he recommended an appeal to a high authority in London. The high authority was summoned by telegraph and paid us a flying visit. He enunicated