“She don’t know me, Stephen; she just drowsily mutters and stares. I have spoken to her times and again, but she don’t notice! ’Tis as well so. When she comes to her right mind once more, I shall have done what I can, and she never the wiser.”

“How long, Rachael, is ’t looked for, that she’ll be so?”

“Doctor said she would haply come to her mind tomorrow.”

His eyes fell again on the bottle, and a tremble passed over him, causing him to shiver in every limb. She thought he was chilled with the wet. “No,” he said, “it was not that. He had had a fright.”

“A fright?”

“Ay, ay! coming in. When I were walking. When I were thinking. When I⁠—” It seized him again; and he stood up, holding by the mantelshelf, as he pressed his dank cold hair down with a hand that shook as if it were palsied.