This, of course, prompted me
to keep her existence a secret as long as possible, and, in my
efforts to do so, I can see now that I oftentimes acted the part
of a fool. If I could live over the past again I would proclaim
from the housetops that Nina was my wife. I love her with a
different love since I told you all. She is growing fast into my
heart, and I have hopes that a sight of her old home, together
with the effects of her native air, will do her good. Griswold
always said it would, and preposterous as it seems, I have even
dared to dream of a future, when Nina will be in a great measure
restored to reason."
"If she does, Arthur, what then?" and, in her excitement, Edith
raised herself in bed, and sat looking at him with eyes which grew
each moment rounder, blacker, brighter, but had in them, alas, no
expression of joy; and when in answer to her appeal, Arthur said,
"I shall make her my wife," she fell back upon her pillow,
uttering a moaning cry, which to the startled Arthur sounded like,
"No, no! no, no! not your wife.
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