But, when he came, all
this was forgotten. A tumult of wild feeling surged through my brain. My
very tongue grew icy, and trembled in my mouth. My eyes were dimmed, and
my forehead was cold and rigid. I was silent from emotion. I felt like a
dying wretch.
"You are very pale, Miriam," he said, as he advanced to me with
outstretched hands, and wearing that beaming, candid, devoted look he
knew so well how to assume; "are you sure you are not going to be ill
again, my love? You must be careful of yourself, my own darling; you
must indeed, for my sake, if not your own."
I was strengthened now to speak, by the indignation that possessed me,
at his perfidious words, his wholly artificial manner, which broke on me
as suddenly and as glaringly on the eye as rouge will do on a woman's
cheek in sunshine, which we have thought real bloom in shadow. I
wondered then, how I ever could have been deceived. I wonder less now.
"Sit down, Mr. Bainrothe," I said, coldly, withdrawing my hands quietly
from his grasp, and recovering with my composure my strength. "Do not
concern yourself about my health, I beg. It is quite good just now, and
will probably remain so for some time. My spells occur at distant
intervals."
"I know how that is, or has been; but we must try to break them up
altogether. We will go to Paris next year, and have the best advice; in
the mean time Dr.
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