, and she even forgot her
own pain, or thanked God it was so moderate, causing only a temporary
lameness--and leaving her hands free to minister, as only hers could
minister, to the comfort of her more suffering brother. As both advanced
in age, however, the disease gained ground on both.

Mr Devereux was subjected to long and excruciating torture, and almost
helplessness, being entirely confined to his bed and easy-chair; and
not being aware--for she never complained--that his sister was often
suffering at the same time, though not equally with himself, he not
only accepted, as he had been wont to do, that unwearied attention and
that tender ministry to which she had so long accustomed him, but
unconsciously became more exacting and more difficult to please, as his
mind and temper became enfeebled and irritable, from natural causes of
decay, and the more fatal inroads of unconfided care. So it was that at
seasons of suffering he could scarcely endure her absence for an hour
together; and when the cruel malady left him free from pain, but reduced
to greater feebleness, as little could he spare her from the side of his
garden seat, or study chair, who was the sharer of all his intellectual
pleasures, as she was the soother of his bodily anguish.

And when his evil genius was about him in the shape of cousin Heneage,
ill could the tender sister brook the thought of leaving him to that
hateful companionship, from which he evidently shrank with increasing
repugnance, though too frequently compelled, as it seemed, by some
secret necessity, to submit to long private conferences with his dark
kinsman. From these interviews, I have since heard from Hallings, he
always reappeared in a state of pitiable agitation or deep despondence;
and more than once on his reaching Mrs Eleanor's dressing-room, in
which, as if in a haven of safety, he was wont to take refuge from the
scene of torment, he has fallen into a sort of fit, his forehead
breaking out into profuse cold perspiration, and his eyes fixed with
perfect unconsciousness on his agonised sister.

It is wonderful that the mental fabric should not have been utterly
overthrown by such cruel conflicts; but though weakened in its powers of
endurance, and perhaps in its reflective faculties, the common course of
nature was reversed with regard to its sensibilities, which became more
painfully acute as those powers decayed which should have
counterbalanced their morbid ascendancy.