CHAPTER IX.
UNDER HER SPELL.
Among twelve hundred patients in various stages of insanity it was difficult to notice one above another, but gradually all the physicians and attendants began to take an uncommon interest in the pretty dark-eyed, golden-haired young girl who had been brought to the asylum in November.
They could not help noticing her exquisite beauty, though she had become pale and slight, like a snowdrop, with the wasting illness that had followed on her exposure to the storm the night of the tragedy. She was very quiet, and gave no trouble, save that her low, pathetic singing sometimes gave the young lady attendants such a turn that they said it fairly went to their hearts. No one wondered at it, as her story became known—the story of tragedy one could read so clearly in the big, sombre, dark eyes, with their wistful appealing.
The attendants said that they had never seen such a docile patient before. She was not violent or troublesome in any way, only intensely sad; never a smile on her red lips, that were always drooping in pathetic sorrow.
“It is the most pathetic case I ever saw. It is scarcely madness, only a settled melancholy that is breaking down her health, and will end in death unlessshe is roused to some new interest in life. It was cruel in her people to send her to Weston. They should have kept her at home and soothed and petted her like a child until she took some notice of things,” said the clever young woman doctor of the asylum, speaking of the case to her new colleague, Doctor Rupert.
He had only entered on his new duties the day before, and Doctor Bertrand was showing him through the wards, never noticing how nervous he became when she pointed out to him the interesting patient.
“Her name is Eva Somerville, and she has lost her reason through one of the most appalling tragedies that ever occurred in the State. Perhaps you read of it in the newspapers—the case where Doctor Ludington and Terry Groves murdered each other in her bedroom on Hallowe’en?”
“Yes, yes; I remember it well. So this is the heroine of the story? A very childish, innocent creature she looks, though the newspapers made her out very wicked,” returned Doctor Rupert, fairly devouring the hapless girl with his eyes, without surprising Doctor Bertrand, who was accustomed to every one admiring Eva Somerville.
She answered frankly:
“I believe the newspapers lied. There was some doubt as to her guilt, some mystery about the whole affair. For my part, I believe little Eva is wronged and innocent.”
“You are the first person I ever heard take her part. God bless you for a true, good woman, Doctor Bertrand!” exclaimed her hearer, grasping her hand and pressing it with emotion.
The young lady smiled with pleasure and answered:
“Then you also agree with me, as do many others here at the asylum. It is indeed hard for any one to look at that lovely, pure-faced girl and credit her guilty. Eva,” she called softly to the young girl, who sat motionless at a window, paying no attention to them.
The big dark eyes came back from their contemplation of the dreary January landscape with a vacant stare.
“Eva, this is a new doctor, dear, who is going to help us cure you, so that you will laugh and be happy again. Shake hands, dear, with Doctor Rupert.”
The sombre eyes did not light with intelligence, and the tiny white hands remained folded on her lap, until Doctor Rupert himself stepped forward and took one of the chilly little hands in his, pressing it warmly, while he trembled with emotion.
He had seen her grow up from lovely babyhood, but he had never touched her little hand before, never met her eyes save with the black, cold stare they wore now, but once, and that one thrilling moment rushed over him instantly.
That night, when she believed that he was dying, her pity had conquered her pride and anger, and shehad knelt by his side and pressed her soft lips to his cold brow.
“Good-by, good-by! If you had lived I would have loved you!” she had murmured so sweetly that he could never forget.
His heart shook with the memory of her sweet words, and he wondered if she had meant them—proud little Eva, who had always ignored him, flashing past when he met her out riding on Firefly with a proudly poised head and curling lips. She would never even look at him—never. She hated him so because he was a Ludington.
It was only out of hysterical pity she had spoken such tender words. If she knew that he was living still, if she could recognize him now, she would be as cold and scornful as of yore.
He held the small hand as long as he dared, almost crushing it in his clasp, as he longed to crush the slight form against his heart and claim the love she had promised him if he lived.
“We must be friends, little Eva,” he said to her huskily, with a yearning smile in his eyes; but she made no reply, only looked at him fixedly and wistfully, and broke into her haunting refrain:
“Fair Diantha loved a lover,Madly, madly, madly——”
“Fair Diantha loved a lover,Madly, madly, madly——”
“Fair Diantha loved a lover,Madly, madly, madly——”
“Fair Diantha loved a lover,
Madly, madly, madly——”
“We will go on,” Doctor Bertrand said gently, drawing him away, and adding kindly: “I see you have fallen under her spell like all the rest of us.”
“Who could help it, poor girl?” he answered abstractedly, moving on by her side and continuing:
“Have you tried to rouse her interest in anything? I should fancy she would like books and flowers, like any young girl. There is a conservatory here, I believe?”
“Yes, and little Eva shall have some of the sweetest flowers to-morrow. I am sorry I did not think of that before,” answered the bright young woman cordially.
“And I will bring her a book. Of course she would like poetry. Every young girl does, naturally. What a blessing if we could restore her to reason again!” he cried.
“And yet the pity of it,” she said thoughtfully. “Even if she were restored to her right mind again, there is no home open to poor little Eva, unless the old people that sent her here would take her back. It is the saddest case in the world!”
She was not aware that the superintendent of the asylum, Doctor St. Clair, was in the ward, until he spoke close to her elbow:
“Do not give your kind heart any uneasiness over that, my dear Doctor Bertrand. If Miss Somerville ever recovers her reason, we can easily make her self-supporting by giving her a position here.”
“That will be very kind of you,” the young lady replied quietly, and he turned affably to the new physician.
“You find little Eva an interesting patient, as weall do. She is so pretty and childlike, it is hard to believe her the heroine of so terrible a scandal.”
“It is impossible!” Doctor Rupert answered curtly, with a flash in the eyes under the long, drooping lashes, so that the astute superintendent, a middle-aged man himself, thought shrewdly:
“Such a wonderful power has beauty in distress, that this callow young man believes in her innocence already, although nothing could be clearer than the evidence of her guilt. Dying men do not lie.”
He shrugged his shoulders and dropped the subject, but walked on with them through the ward, making himself very cordial, and even confidential, after his fashion, by recurring to his own personal grievances, some arbitrary rulings of the board of directors at their session last week. They had a most reprehensible habit of clipping the doctor’s soaring wings.