s passed on, and still there was nothing. Mr. Henry bettered
in strength, he held long talks with us on a great diversity of
subjects, his father came and sat with him and went again; and still
there was no reference to the late tragedy or to the former troubles
which had brought it on. Did he remember, and conceal his dreadful
knowledge? or was the whole blotted from his mind? This was the problem
that kept us watching and trembling all day when we were in his company,
and held us awake at night when we were in our lonely beds. We knew not
even which alternative to hope for, both appearing so unnatural, and
pointing so directly to an unsound brain. Once this fear offered, I
observed his conduct with sedulous particularity. Something of the child
he exhibited: a cheerfulness quite foreign to his previous character, an
interest readily aroused, and then very tenacious, in small matters
which he had heretofore despised. When he was stricken down, I was his
only confidant, and I may say his only friend, and he was on terms of
division with his wife; upon his recovery, all was changed, the past
forgotten, the wife first and even single in his thoughts. He turned to
her with all his emotions, like a child to its mother, and seemed secure
of sympathy; called her in all his needs with something of that
querulous familiarity that marks a certainty of indulgence and I must
say, in justice to the woman, he was never disappointed. To her, indeed,
this changed behaviour was inexpressibly affecting; and I think she felt
it secretly as a reproach; so that I have seen her, in early days,
escape out of the room that she might indulge herself in weeping. But to
me the change appeared not natural; and viewing it along with all the
rest, I began to wonder, with many head-shakings, whether his reason
were perfectly erect.

As this doubt stretched over many years, endured indeed until my
master's death, and clouded all our subsequent relations, I may well
consider of it more at large. When he was able to resume some charge of
his affairs, I had many opportunities to try him with precision. There
was no lack of understanding, nor yet of authority; but the old
continuous interest had quite departed; he grew readily fatigued, and
fell to yawning; and he carried into money relations, where it is
certainly out of place, a facility that bordered upon slackness. True,
since we had no longer the exactions of the Master to contend against,
there was